#because I was quoting the linked source and I ended up linking a different source instead

[carriesthewind]

Hi, @incomt65 ! I'm a lawyer, which means it's my job to be able to back up everything I'm saying with provable facts!

So let's take a look at a few of the claims that you made in your response in an attempt to "prevent the spread of misinformation."

First, you begin your response by obfuscating the difference between "public library" and "library." For those unaware, there are many different kinds of libraries, and the term can be used in all sorts of contexts. Here is a bunch of definitions assembled by the American Library Association, with more specific definitions of a few different kinds of libraries, including public libraries. As you have "a master's degree in library & information science," I believe you must know the difference, and it is hard to believe that your obfuscation is not deliberate.

(putting the rest of below a cut because this post is already too long)

Second, you claim that the IA is "recognized as a library." Now, this is a claim that I see all the time. Since you didn't bother to provide a source, I can't call you a liar, since you may have just meant, "news articles uncritically report that it is is recognized as a library," which I guess is a kind of recognition by those news writers.

But we're in the business of preventing the spread of misinformation, so let's be a bit more specific and look for a source, shall we?

Let's turn first to your argument that it's "engaged in the work of libraries." You cite the "work of libraries" as: "preserving and providing access* to information."

I'm going to be honest, this is one of the broadest definitions of a library I have ever read. And I don't think even IA's proponents agree with you: here is an article some of them wrote last year arguing that the IA's "open library" is a library. However, even in that article, despite picking a definition themselves, they fail to provide evidence that it even meets the complete definition of a library that they themselves proffer. Most notably, one of the listed characteristics of a library in that article is that it "offer[s] targeted services and programs." They do not offer any evidence that comes even close to meeting that prong of the definition.

*I will also note that, like every other angry reaction I've received, nowhere in your response to you address the issue of access that I raised in my post. This isn't relevant to my point in this response, but it's really really telling to me that a librarian who believes in "the value of information access for everyone" doesn't think the question of what access actually means is worth addressing.

But let's turn back to your claim, that the IA is "recognized as a library." Where does this come from?

Well, if we go all the way back in the IA blog's archives, we find this post: "Internet Archive officially a library". This post links to a local paper which states, "In May, California officially recognized the Internet Archive, established in 1996, as a library." The article claims this designation means "the online archive eligible to apply for several federal grant programs that are administered by the state of California." But it notes that Brewster Kahle says it means that the "digital library is on equal footing with a print material archive." But what does it actually mean?

Well, if we do some more digging, it looks like the State Librarian (of Schools and Libraries Division of USAC) recognized it as a library for the purposes of allowing it to apply for federal grant programs administered by the state under an exception for "other special library"**...an exception which it seems may no longer exist. It was still listed on the California State's Library Website as a grantee in 2017 (along with some other cool archiving projects that while valuable, are not libraries), but is not currently listed.

**Caveat that this is an unverified comment from an old blog, but the information provided matches the controlling guidelines from 2007.

So yeah. That is, as far as I can tell, the IA's whole basis for the argument that they have any formal recognition as a library. That in 2007, a single state allowed it to apply for a grant.

Of course, @incomt65, you didn't actually include any evidence for your claim, so I may be missing something. If you would like to include your basis for your assertion, I'm happy to review. I wouldn't want to spread misinformation.

Third: you claim that for all the materials in the IA's "Emergency Library, "They own these books legally, because they either purchased them or received them through donations, the same methods any library employs to build a collection."

This is factually untrue, according to the IA themselves. (Whoops. Maybe you should have actually checked this before posting misinformation online.) While some of the books were purchased or received through donations, others were scanned from the partner libraries' collections. From Hachette, a more detailed description of how this worked: "In 2018, IA launched the “Open Libraries Project,” allowing libraries to “contribute” their noncirculating print books to the number of concurrent checkouts available on IA’s website. Participating libraries send a catalog of their noncirculating books to IA, which then runs an “overlap analysis.” App’x 6095. If the library’s catalog includes a book for which IA already has a digital copy, IA increases the number of available concurrent checkouts by one. Participating libraries may, in turn, integrate links to IA’s digital books in their own catalogs." Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive, No. 23-1260, at 11 (2nd Cir. Sept. 4, 2024) (footnote omitted) ***

***I will be citing from Hachette repeatedly here, because the facts in the decision are all taken from undisputed statements of facts by the parties, i.e., these are all facts that both the publishers and IA agreed were true before a court of law.

Furthermore, you claim that the IA did not "illegally obtain any of the resources in the National Emergency Library." Again, hi, lawyer here. Whether or not something is "illegal" is a factual, not a moral, question. You might think is should be ok to scan a book you own and then lend that scan out to other people. You may think that the scan should be considered the same as the physical book, so if you bought the book legally, you also obtained the scan legally. But regardless of your opinions of what should be, the court very clearly found that the IA's scanning and then lending of those books was, in fact, illegal.

That's one of the things about courts: they get to decide what is and isn't illegal. You may not like what they describe, but factually describing what the law is is not a misstatement. Declaring that something wasn't actually illegal because you think it was morally fine, however, is.

Fourth, you state, "Prior to COVID-19, IA was engaged in loaning these digital books using the same approach that almost every library uses: by allowing users to borrow them with artificial restrictions imposed."

This is...kind of correct, if only because you have phrased it very carefully. See, the reason that libraries impose artificial restrictions is because those restrictions are imposed by the licenses under which they own the digital books. See Hachette, No. 23-1260, at 8-9. The IA did not have a license to digitize or lend digital copies of the books that they were lending. See id. at 14. So not a misstatement, but kind of misleading, don't you think?

This is made more misleading by your statement, "But the process the IA had in place for loaning digital books prior to the pandemic was exactly the process any "normal" library follows." Again, this isn't really true. The IA was engaged in a form of "Controlled Digital Lending," which there are entire position statements about and a white paper on because it is different from the normal digital book lending process. And I say "a form of CDL" because different libraries are approaching it in different ways. For example, Virginia's Academic Library Consortium only allows CDL if the library itself owns the physical book. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, however, only used CDL if the material was not already available as an e-book.

Fifth, you state, "(I will also note that many of the books in this collection, which spans books from the 1920s to early 2000s, are no longer protected by copyright and/or are no longer in print, and therefore it is not possible to pay a publisher to obtain them. Loans of these books in no way represent "lost sales" for publishers.)" This is correct! It is not a misstatement! However, as the lawsuit wasn't about that portion of the IA's collection (a point which you never clarified) it is utterly irrelevant to your post and appears intended only to represent the nature of the case. See Hachette, No. 23-1260, at 14-15 ("All 127 Works are available as authorized eBooks that may be purchased by consumers or licensed to libraries.")

Sixth, you state, "The only difference in the case of the National Emergency Library is that IA temporarily suspended one of the artificial restrictions--instead of one user at a time having access to the digital resource while others were placed on a waitlist, they allowed for multiple users to access the same resource." Again, this is, technically, true. It is not a misstatement. But my god, do you not understand the difference? The one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio is the entire basis of CDL! It's the thing that supposed to make it not a violation of copyright! It's the thing that supposed to make it different than digital piracy! Yes, allowing multiple loans of the same item was the "only difference," but that difference was critical!

Seventh, you say, "They were not freely distributing these books for anyone to keep forever; they were still "checked out" and had to be returned, and could not be redistributed to other people." Again, this is true, and not a misstatement. But because you have framed your entire post as correcting things that my original post "misunderstands and misrepresents...about the case," you are very clearly implying that I claimed that the IA was "freely distributing these books for anyone to keep forever." Or that this claim was in any way a part of my argument. And I didn't say that, in this post or any others. You are claiming to fight misinformation while actively misrepresenting my statements and my arguments.

Eighth, you state, "So, no, IA didn't steal anything. There was no piracy involved here." Again, this is just a lie. I believe that you want it to be true, but these are ultimately questions of law, that were decided by a court. They did steal, and they were engaged in pirating material.

Ninth, you state, "They employed the same exact methods that are standard in libraries to provide access to digital content." Again, this isn't true. See above.

Tenth, you state, "Legal challenges that threaten their rights in this area are threats to all libraries, because we all rely on the same legal justifications and interpretations of what is permissable for us to do."

So this is actually true. But it really, really pisses me off. Because when I said the IA was selfish, it is for exactly this reason. Libraries were engaging in versions of CDL carefully trying to push the boundaries of copyright to increase access. The IA decided to blow it all up in pursuit of their own interests and agenda, not the interests of libraries or the public. Their entire approach to their "open library" was, legally speaking, stupid and reckless, and their "national emergency library" was obviously illegal to anyone with any passing knowledge of the law. The IA knew that "Legal challenges that threaten their rights in this area are threats to all libraries," and they had full reason to know that their "emergency library" would create the perfect opportunity for publishers to sue them in a case that they would have no chance of winning, and they decided to damn the risk to libraries, damn the risk to the public, and do it anyway. The IA’s actions were a reckless attempt to push their policy agenda in a way that obviously violated copyright law, to an extent that a lawsuit was all but inevitable, and ensured a major loss for proponents of “Controlled Digital Lending” in the courts.

And for what.

Because that's the thing that really gets me about your response. I can deal with the lies. I can deal with the insults.

But you decide to end your piece by saying that the IA's post wasn't critical of library closures, and you completely decline to address any of my points about what patrons really needed, and what access really means.

Because fuck you. You have "a master's degree in library & information science" and have "been working in the field for over 10 years." You should know how to read a text. An article does not need to say, "this is an outrage"**** to express that they think something is outrageous. It's plenty good enough to spend two paragraphs using the most incendiary language possible to talk about a temporary situation that librarians on the ground were doing everything they could to mitigate.

****And by the by, if you look at my original post, you will note that I did correctly quote the article's statement that the library closures were a "tremendous and historic outage." I then read the rest of what the article said and understood it was saying the closures were outrageous, and attempted to use some ~clever wordplay~ to covey my understanding of that meaning. You many note I did not put quotes around the term "historic outrage." To the extent that I may have confused anyone however, I do apologize.

And more than that - I only worked in a library for a few years, and I don't know how many times I heard people getting mad at the librarians for "wasting my tax dollars." If you've been "working in the field," you know exactly the attitude and criticism that was deliberately being invoked by the language of that article.

And about those librarians on the ground - they were in fact doing a lot to address the needs of their communities. Including, by the way, getting them access to those books that were "locked away indefinitely behind closed doors." For example, here is a response to the practice of "curbside pickup" of library books that was published four days before the article I linked.

And you say you care about "the value of information access for everyone." I do to. And like I said in my original post, "access" doesn't just means that a file is digitized online somewhere so someone can theoretically check it out. People need to have access to computers or phones, access to the internet, a safe space to sit and read. They need to be able to find the information they are looking for. If you've ever actually worked in a library, you know that a large part of the library's services are helping people find what they are looking for. Because just because a book exists in a collection, doesn't mean a patron can find it.

And people who could use the IA's "emergency library"? They already had that. The only "unprecedented need" their actions addressed were making already-existing digital books more easily available to people who already had the means to access massive amounts of freely available information and entertainment. There were real and lasting harms of libraries having to temporarily close. None of those harms stemmed from someone having to wait a few extra months to check out The House on Mango Street.

If you care about libraries, librarians, and books, and if you believe in the value of information access for everyone, you should be furious at the IA's actions, not defending them.

And in the future, please spread accurate information and fact check before you decide to reply to a post.

I reread the IA's contemporaneous post justifying their "National Emergency Library", and one of the things that struck me is just how selfish it was.

(It was also full of falsehoods, ranging from exaggeration to outright lies, but that's another matter.)

While 2020 feels like it was several decades in the past, it was actually only a few years ago. And I remember March of 2020! I was there! And oh my god, is this post right in line with every other selfish, demanding asshole determined to make a global pandemic all about themselves!

First of all, there is the language of the post - it is a "tremendous and historic outage" that books are unavailable to patrons because libraries are closed for the pandemic. "Right now, today, there are 650 million books that tax-paying citizens have paid to access that are sitting on shelves in closed libraries, inaccessible to them."

Missing from this outrage is a recognition that, like. Librarians are people. They get sick, and die.

They did get sick, and died.

Libraries were closed not only to protect patrons and the public, but librarians too. Libraries were closed to protect people, human beings. Because generally speaking, even the most enthusiastic supporters of access to books and knowledge, prioritize lives over books.

The AI's post, however, reeks of an entitlement to things that *my* tax dollars paid for. Libraries and library collections aren't a public good. They're something *I* should be able to access anytime I want, damn the context or the consequences.

(Was it also a historic outrage when I had to wait several months to check out Nona the Ninth, because so many other people were checking it out?)

Second, as I said, I remember early 2020. And in spring and summer of 2020, there was more free content on the internet than before or since. So many people and so many institutions were bending over backwards to provide people with books and tv shows and music and podcasts and virtual tours and collections and just about anything that someone could figure out how to digitize. So many people were giving away books for free, or writing/recording new content to give away for free. I can't even remember how many times I heard or read someone telling their readers or listeners just to pay what they could, if they could. So many people and institutions were giving away so much, do so much, to provide access to knowledge and books and entertainment and information.

And in that moment, the IA decided to steal from people. When so many people, so many authors, were acting so selflessly, they decided that it wasn't good enough. And instead of giving away themselves, they decided to steal from authors and pat themselves on the back for "meet[ing] this unprecedented need," when they didn't even actually do anything themselves. Or maybe more accurately, the only thing they did was something irrelevant to the actual needs of the community, something they wanted to do anyway, something to try to use a pandemic as an excuse to advance their agenda.

Because third, there is zero concern for the population of patrons actually most impacted by the closure. The IA cares, to a fault, only about information being digitized.* But many people who use physical libraries, many of the people most impacted by their closure, are people who do not have access to the AI's so-called "open library." And people who could access digital books generally continued to have access to their library's e-book services, and to tons of other free content. The patrons who were actually in the most need are ignored as irrelevant.

*And I want to be clear - they care that information is digitized, not about digital access. "Access" means more than information being digitized and theoretically being able to be read.

It's so clear that IA didn't really care about the patrons of physical libraries. Instead, they saw a real problem, and instead of working toward any solutions, decided to use it as a prop to push their own agenda. (Again, while people were dying.)

It's just all so deeply selfish.

[love-belle]

i should hate u !!!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which their post break-up era is them using shady captions to communicate and the media and fans being confused.

or

for when you loved them too much. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

social media au // max verstappen x fem!reader

sequel - today and tomorrow and every day after that ⋆·˚ ༘ *

warnings - language

author's note - hello!!! i really hope u like this <3 i was initially gonna do daniel ricciardo one first but i already had 1/2 of this done so i just decided to post this :) thank u sm for reading <3 i love u

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by paddock.club, f1gossippage, y/n4everrr and 6,829 others

f1news y/n y/l/n and max verstappen called it quits almost a month ago and it seems like they didn't end on good terms at all. the singer, at her london show last night, threw shade at her ex-boyfriend, saying and we quote, "the next song wouldn't have been possible without this one dude who inspired it obviously. so — here's 'i should hate you'. spoiler alert, i do. thank you!" the reason for the split is still unknown but sources who claim to be close to the pair said that 'it was bound to happen — with their different goals and plans for the future," seemingly referring to the talks that y/l/n wanted to get married and verstappen didn't. both of them have yet to comment on the situation. for more details, click on the link in our bio.

278 comments

username WOAH

username pause.

username ahahahahaha say what.

username oh my god 💀💀💀

username NOT HER CONFIRMING THAT I SHOULD HATE YOU IS ABT MAX

username no bc the way her voice cracked so many times in between the songs like girlie is angry AND hurt

username OH MY GOD

username i genuinely have no words

username omg the photos are NOT of her shading max. it's her laughing at a fan who yelled "you're the baddest bitch of all baddest bitches" at her

-> username YEAH LIKE SHE WAS SO CLOSE TO CRYING WHEN SHE SANG ISHY

username my delusional ass thinking they ended on good terms 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

username nah it's so champagne problems and you're losing me kinda thing i can't handle this whatcthe fucj

username OH WHATCTHEBFUCJ

username me getting the big guns out to defend her AND max with my LIFE

username still processing their breakup give me a year to digest this information

username STOP WHAT THE FUCK

username my parents ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

username no bc she's genuinely such a sweet person so if she said this max must've done something 😭😭😭😭😭

-> username STOP NO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

username can't believe she's saying this about a dude for whom she wrote "feels like" for like wow.

username I WAS AT THAT SHOW AND SHE LOOKED SO SAD AFTER SHE SAID THIS I FELT SO BAD

-> username SHE ALSO STARTED CRYING WHEN SHE FINISHED SINGING I MISS U IM SORRY AND ZARA (HER LEAD GUITARIST) HAD TO RUN AND CONSOLE HER

-> username AND SHE SAID THAT THE LAST MONTH HAS BEEN HARD ON HER AND SHE APOLOGIZED IF THE SHOW WASN'T AS GOOD AS THE OTHERS

-> username NAH MOTHER ATE AS ALWAYS

username y'all saying this but not the fact that she ALSO said "in another life we would've worked but im grateful for everything i had because for a moment you were mine"

-> username MY HEART JUST BROKE WHATCTHEBFUCK

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by lewishamilton, carlossainz55, pierregasly and 799,155 others

maxverstappen1 i know i say that i am better now, spoiler alert, i am

8,926 comments

username the way my jaw dropped

username THE PICTURES

username GODDAMN

username someone take away y/n's phone before she hits back 💀💀💀

-> username the way i know that she would absolutely destroy him

username NOT THE PHOTOS OMG

danielricciardo spoiler alert, also a liar

-> maxverstappen1 you promised you wouldn't snitch

username he definitely cried while posting this idc

username max babe it's okay to admit that u miss ur wifey bc same 💔💔💔

-> username "wifey" girl he didn't even wanna marry her

-> username not another word.

username funny haha 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 im crying 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 now get back with mom.

landonorris no you're not

-> maxverstappen1 i will block you

username lando and daniel exposing max 💀💀💀

username no bc he probably cries whenever he remembers that he fumbled a baddie like y/n

username "it's all better with you ❤️"

-> username i could've gone along with my day without seeing that just saying

-> username delete that RIGHT NOW before i start crying

username missing max simping for y/n like ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

charles_leclerc i swear i can hear you crying from my hotel room

-> maxverstappen1 WE'RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME HOTEL

username the way im SO sure he heard y/n saying that she hates him and that was the moment he gave up

-> username nah bc he was one of the "my girl's mad at me i hope i die" kinda guys

-> username wonder how he's surviving this tbh

username I CAN'T TAKE THIS SERIOUS IM SORRY THE POST IS JUST TOO FUNNY

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by selenagomez, carmenmmundt, dualipa and 2,246,826 others

yourusername i hate you lol

12,628 comments

username HELP

username she could only get this much in before her manager took away her phone ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

*liked by yourusername*

username no bc girl had a lot to say she's just trying to keep it cute

*liked by yourusername*

username the way i know y/n FOUGHT for the right to post this caption

username this is MILD bc i know y/n can be ruthless 😭😭😭😭😭😭

landonorris "in love" alright.

-> yourusername IT'S FOR THE AESTHETIC

username mother and father are fighting i can't take this what tye fyxk

username 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

username mother slays everyday just saying

username no bc if y/n ever said ihy to me i would give up just a thought

lilymhe pretty bitch

-> yourusername u sure that's not u?????

username i REALLY hope she's at the next gp

-> username no bc the way max and her meeting would definitely be more entertaining than the race itself

username NOT THE SONG LYRICS WHAT HAVE U PLANNED

-> username oh fuck that broke my heart what the fuck

username missing my man max in the comments section being a whipped bitch so bad ://////

carmenmmundt can't wait to see you darling 🤍

-> yourusername counting down the seconds omg i missed u!!!!!!

username y/n's manager has her on lockdown i can tell 💀💀💀

-> username with what she said at her last show i wouldn't be surprised

landonorris the post has reached the target and the target is currently eating ice cream while singing your songs

-> yourusername OH OKAY

-> yourusername good to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

username she's so pretty it's not fair wtf

username the caption omg

-> username it's SO mild compared to what i was expecting tbh 💀

username slay

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

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maxverstappen1 it's all better now

comments are disabled for this post

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by carmenmmundt, charles_leclerc, landonorris and 2,829,626 others

yourusername and i swear to god i'd kill you if i loved you a less hard

13,728 comments

username SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

username OH MY GOD

username IS THAT MAX WHATCTHEBFUCK

username NOT Y/N SOFT LAUNCHING HER EX BOYFRIEND

username GIRL 😭😭😭😭 get up

username this is INSANE

username MOTHER?????? WHAT IS THIS??????

danielricciardo the most stressful week of my life if we're being for real

-> yourusername u can send m*x the therapy bill

-> maxverstappen1 don't. i did not agree to that.

username HER SONG LYRICS OH MY GOD

username SHE WROTE THIS SONG FOR MAX 😭😭😭😭😭😭

username okay but like. are we SURE that's max?????

-> username i simply refuse to believe that it's someone else so yes. that IS in fact max.

username OKAYYYYYYY

username did NOT see this coming in a thousand years

username obviously VERY happy for them but y/n censoring max's name is so fucking hilarious like

-> yourusername babe it's m*x

-> username my bad ur absolutely right it's m*x

-> maxverstappen1 this is bullying

username DID HE PUT A RING ON IT WHATXTHEBFUCK

-> username NO BC THAT WOULD MAKE SM SENSE

username so i lost SLEEP over nothing????????

maxverstappen1 nice pants

-> yourusername thanks they would look better on ur floor

-> maxverstappen1 say less

-> username i think i just died whatcthebfuxk

-> username oh they're GOOD now

username imagine they just drop engagement photos out of the blue then what.

-> yourusername imagine lol

-> username WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

username i just know y/n's eating up every moment of this chaos

-> maxverstappen1 demons thrive in chaos so

-> yourusername well! it was nice to reconcile for a couple days, goodbye now.

username im crying whayctrhbfcuk

landonorris mother father

-> yourusername child

-> maxverstappen1 no

-> username ah yes the four family members mother father child and no

username THE HEART THE EVERYTHING THEM

username they STILL don't follow eachother LMFAO

[auroratumbles]

first of all, do NOT in any way harass nor send hate to anyone mentioned in this post. this is simply to raise awareness about it all!!

user @/ceneid (formerly) was a popular person in the genshin writing community who lied about their age, identity, faked an ed, and was just mainly a shitty person in general.

all the information on this post comes from an anonymous source

the blogs that were owned by elise are:

ceneid

hikoiaa

umiloa

ha-yami

scarasgfreal

symphxony

fionvancia

fixnaie

a quote from my source:

"for context, elise ran a total of 4-5 accounts, with her very first blog being ceneid that was also mutuals with you - they’re the same person. elise had multiple accounts where she claimed she was different ages and it was fairly obvious it was her due to the fact that she didn’t bother to change her typing style or themes, one of the blogs claimed she was 18, a few of my friends and i ended up noticing she had a terrible tendency to say things like “oh i haven’t eaten in 20 hours! should i eat? oh nvm” and such which led to everyone being concerned, these were EXTREMELY frequent, and she’d speak about self harm - randomly putting it in a casual conversation without warning.

she also asked for my location at some point, and overall i eventually grew tired of it and blocked her. later on, someone i know made a callout post on her and it ended in shambles, elise continued to try to get them to take the post down but to no avail until elise deactivated ceneid and started the hikoiaa blog. the person who made the post found out it was her and the cycle continued, until elise ended up admitting everyone and apologized to everyone per the person’s request.

after elise did that, the person deactivated their blog thinking elise had changed for the better - and i even interacted with her too because i thought the same thing. unfortunately, we were all wrong and found out elise owned the @/symphxony blog where she says she’s 17. multiple things have it away that it was her such as coincidentally posting the same things, following the exact same people, and elise also bypassed someone’s boundaries by interacting with them through the blog as a way to become friends with them despite the person telling her to not interact with her directly.

elise made excuses when i confronted her and told her to stop, and she played it off as coincidences like she did before when the owner of the call out post tried to talk things out with her. i have people who can vouch for everything im saying, as well as some screenshots that would unfortunately not fit into this ask because there’s too many of them, she also has this strange obsession with following and interacting with people that i follow and interact with in any shape or form, this has happened almost 7 times now as well. she’s constantly made blogs to follow me on despite me telling her to NEVER contact me again. this stopped a few days ago when she blocked me."

screenshots provided were

another quote:

"elise’s stories never made sense, they were always exaggerated and/or made her seem smarter than she actually was - this was a small bit of the proof that she was lying about her age at the end when she claimed to be 16. she linked a few tiktoks on her blog, revealing her account in the process that studied 7th grade science"

she was called out by someone else on tumblr initially, but that post was lost to the depths. she lied about having a joint blog with someone when it was really just her. to save her own skin, she dmed them.

when that blog blocked her, she made a 'burner account' to talk to them even more.

another blog named 'scarasgfreal' was made. they were 𝜗𝜚 anon and 🦢 anon. the blog was made a few days after the incident mentioned above.

the blog confronted elise.

part 2 of this post

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

It’s gone midnight and I’m thinking about Six of Crows so y’all know what that means: it’s time for a long rambling thought process that will hopefully have some interesting insights into the books in it.

I want to talk about the animal, mostly bird, symbolism of these books because although it’s obviously something we’re very aware of I also think it’s something that runs a lot deeper than we necessarily always realise/talk about. Even when people aren’t being directly involved in bird metaphors (crows, pigeons, peacocks) they are often described as “squawking”, “flapping”, or with other phrases that further this semantic field.

Now the crows is obviously the main source of the symbolism, and it’s openly talked about in the book with the speech on how the recognise human faces and how they support each other. I’ve also seen a few people online talking about the Crows in conjunction with a poem/nursery rhyme about crows (it’s one of those that has many different versions spun of it, some know it was counting magpies rather than crows) wherein 6 crows symbolises gold, of course greatly linked to the plot of the novels as well as their anti-extreme capitalism message. It’s also key to mention that crows are massively underestimated birds in the general public view; they’re far ‘smarter’ animals than we would typically expect. Crows have a very high brain to body mass ratio, I believe the highest of any birds but don’t quote me on that, and although we understand very little about the brain the size ratio is currently considered a very good indicator for the general intelligence level of the animal. Crows can make tools, hide their food, mate for life, and - VERY interestingly for this book analysis - have even been suspected to hold funerals. Now I want to be clear I’m working on a mix of random knowledge and the first helpful looking website that came up when I googled ‘fun facts about crows’ so I am by no means an expert here, but to my understanding the practice that was initially considered to be a ‘crow funeral’ is actually a process wherein crows will gather around a dead crow to look for potential danger. So I feel like the links I’m establishing here are relatively obvious, the point is that, like the birds themselves, the Crows are undervalued, underestimated, and unexpectedly successful. But the symbol of the crow in these books arguably goes even further.

The crow-headed handle of Kaz’s cane represents everything about the crow I’ve already mentioned on top of his own symbolic layering to the cane as a sign that no part of him has not been broken, and no part him is not better for having been broken. So in Chapter 27 of Crooked Kingdom, when Kaz returns to the Slat and fights the Dregs before leading a coup against Per Haskell, the cane with the fake crow’s head that Haskell has contrived to mock him effectively represents the failing of everything the Dregs represent. They’re last, the remnants, the people with nowhere else to go: they are the people who have been broken and have made something new for themselves. Except Haskell. So the sheer ridiculousness of him mocking Kaz’s cane, something he clearly thought would win him favour and success, in the end becomes one of the biggest aspects of his downfall. Inej describes the moment when the Dregs begin to support Kaz, the way the look at Per Haskell with discomfort - “the feathers in his hat, the canes in his hands” (and then she goes on to highlight how they’ve seen Kaz use his cane in fights, “wielded with such precision”, whereas Haskell is washed-up, pathetic, never could have taken the fight Kaz did and walked out the other side). Of course they realise, then, how completely and utterly wrong all of this was. Because when they’re confronted with both of those canes they realise something. They know what Kaz’s cane represents; it’s power and strength in spite of a world that has that has scorned him, it’s taking something that was broken and not fixing it but emphasising it and making it into a threat, into a symbol, into a strength. They know that, even though they don’t know what happens in Kaz’s head, because they see themselves in that. The Dregs; the literal bottom of the Barrel, who have been broken and who have clawed their way to survival. They cannot see themselves in Haskell’s mockery cane. Haskell is not a man who reflects what the Dregs are at their core, but Kaz is. The emphasis on the feathers is also really interesting, because I think it’s implying a sort of gaudy, colourful feathering that (despite fitting in with the style of the Barrel) does not represent the symbol of the crow; it is not something shadowed, something half hidden that could have an unexpected bite. It’s almost more akin to Heleen’s gaudy peacock feathers than it is to anything the Dregs understand, or represent through being Crows.

The pigeons I don’t really see anyone talking about, but I think it’s pretty interesting. The idea of ‘the pigeon’ is the same as ‘the mark’; they’re the victim, the fool who’s easy to swindle. I think the imagery of the fools being pigeons, ie being everywhere and massively populating big cities, is really clever to show a divide between the few, the Crows, and the many, the pigeons. However, it’s not only the Crows who remark on others being ‘pigeons’, but other gangs as well. When Kaz confronts Pekka about the scam he ran on him and Jordie, he says “you were just two pigeons, and I happened to be the one who plucked you”. I’m not gonna lie to you guys I’m losing my point slightly, but I just googled ‘crows and pigeons’ and the first thing that came up was about how crows sometimes eat pigeons so I reckon that’s pretty relevant.

Ok I’m really tired and I feel like I’m clutching at straws here, so I dunno I guess if this does well then I’ll cover peacocks, lions, and the general semantic field of birds in another post. I hope at least some of this made sense, thanks for reading it if you bothered to get this far

[daretolovemyrambling]

I've seen confusion about the open-endness of arcane season 2 and why so many characters fates have been left open to interpretation (especially Jinx, Jayce, Viktor and Heimerdinger)

Arcane is very likely *not* the last we've seen of these characters.

It's already been confirmed that Fortiche & Christian Linke are working and planning for future projects in the League of Legends universe.

I think the only difference to Arcane we can expect is that when the cast appears in the new projects, they will either not be main characters or their storyline won't involve much of the Piltover/Zaun conflict as that arc is more or less done and won't be the driving force behind the plot anymore.

I'm personally predicting that Mel might be a main character in a Noxus/Black Rose related series as they have set it up pretty well.

I could also imagine that new characters like Orianna, Swain and Leblanc get the spotlight

Quote from an Interview with Christian Linke:

Absolutely. Arcane is just the first one. We're working on a bunch of new projects, a bunch of new stories from across the different regions and characters of our IP, and some of them are actually continuations of character stories from Arcane. So, definitely, there are some character stories that we want to continue.

So, really, Arcane is the true first. This is the first rite that we had to survive and figure out, "Can we do this?" And now, we can kind of dream bigger, which is really awesome.

source

I think it's likely no main character has a 100% confirmed death because riot and the writers want to leave every door open in case they want (and can) pick one of these characters stories up again.

I know there is a Ambessa novel planned and I would expect a lot more novels or even comics until the next series gets officially revealed.

Riot got themselves a golden cash cow and I think even they don't what to fumble it too fast.

That said, Riot goes wherever the money goes, don't take all their claims at face value. I've seen people confused because Riot said that Arcane would complete every characters story arc and that Arcane is now the "main universe" which does not work at all with what they have established.

[ladyluscinia]

Draft clearing. I think I had more of a point on the topic of Jenkins and genre I wanted to make when I gathered these, but I'm not feeling it anymore. However, I need spread awareness of his absolutely baffling ideas about pirate media and how he sounds half-convinced it must be a formulaic action/adventure. I only picked up on this by reading way too many interviews back to back so I'm not surprised I've never seen anyone else mention it, but like. It's wild. And he's SO additionally weird about how showrunning a piece of media about pirates relates to whatever concept he has of pirate media in his head.

Here's the link to my interview compilation if you want to check my sources on these.

Jenkins Quotes on "Pirate Genre"

"I think actual pirate stuff is fine, but it's not necessarily my cup of tea. And I think Taika [Waititi] felt similarly.

[...]

Showrunner Jenkins sees Our Flag Means Death as having "joy. A lot of joy. I like Stede because Stede is, to me, the outsider artist of pirates. And I think in designing the show, I was conscious [of the fact that it's] a hard genre to do anything to. It's a very stubborn genre because it's been done so well and so often. So I kind of tried to look at, like New York, like Alphabet City in the '80s via a pirate genre via Mad Max and try to throw all these different things at it. So I think you'll get a different feel than you'd get on a normal pirate thing. I think we achieved that with our amazing crew." - (Gizmodo, 2/22/22)

"I guess I really… I get kind of bored. How much pirate can you do? They're going to rob stuff. They're going to steal ships. There's only so many pirate stories you can do." - (Collider, 3/24/22)

Despite creating a pirate show, he himself says he's not a huge fan of pirate movies. - (EW.com, 12/13/22)

"I don't want to see a bunch of pirate things that I've seen in other things, I'll just go watch another thing if I want to see that. That's not really my thing. I like the genre, but it's a very hard genre to budge. I want to see relationships in a pirate world." - (TV Guide, 10/5/23)

"The pirate genre is fun, but I wasn't dying to make a pirate show. Taika wasn't dying to make a pirate show. But the thing that was interesting to me was that Stede finds love, and he finds it with Blackbeard." - (Variety, 10/13/23)

"I think there is something in the show about how piracy is a brutal way of life. It's essentially Mad Max, this world. There's no law, there's just strong and weak." - (Polygon, 10/21/23)

"And it’s also a pirate show, so he’s got to die." - (Vanity Fair, 10/26/23)

"Another thing I love is what I call shaggy stories, stories about people navigating each other. When you plug them into different genres, you get this great engine that comes with it. I'm not particularly dying to write a pirate thing, but I want to write a bunch of characters trying to navigate each other in a pirate thing." - (Vulture, 10/28/23)

"But I'm like you. I'm not a big pirate person. In general, it's a big creaky genre that's hard to budge, but I think the show benefits from we can pull pirate stuff out when we need it. Ultimately, yeah, I want to see these different relationships and perspectives on different relationships. Then it's fun to plug it into an overwrought genre.

[...]

Pirates of the Caribbean, those movies are great. That's not necessarily what I hunger to see, but in that genre, it's great. You're not going to beat that, especially on something that's lower budget. We've seen a lot of this stuff, so it's fun to take it then and don't do any of that stuff." - (Metro Weekly, 11/1/23)

"I think it's more interesting to me that I've never seen a love story like this in this genre, and you dream for that. Really, pirates, what can you do that's different with pirates?

[...]

To me, to tell the story about these two men in this very hetero action genre, falling for each other..." - (Metro Weekly, 11/1/23)

---

...This is the same guy who just ended a season on the British Navy blowing up Nassau for symbolism reasons that I'm pretty sure have nothing to do with the love story. 🤨

[greekceltic]

FAQ Page

She/her | 38 | I like cats and rain. My comic: https://catswaycomic.com/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/greekceltic My Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/greekceltic Other links: https://linktr.ee/greekceltic Sorry in advance if you send me a message and I don't get back to you, I tend not to stress over messages/asks. I do try to read them though, and I'm always open to being asked questions about characters or my headworld/stories. I am already aware that my art is being copied. They're blocked. Please stop telling me about it. Rest of my FAQ is under the cut >

Can I repost your work? I don't mind as long as I'm credited. I'm less okay with my work being used as a pageviews grab, but it's probably not worth my time to care. If it's something I've selected to take down and don't have posted anymore, don't. If it's something you commissioned, go for it. You don't need to credit me every time you share it. Once in a while is cool.

Are you okay with fanart? What about OC interactions? Can I post it? Sure, just don't profit off of it and please credit me. If you want to draw my OCs interacting with yours that's also fine (and fun!)- though I prefer situations where their actions make sense. Alf wouldn't make your character cry, for example. He's grumpy but not cruel. Posting it is fine. Is it okay if I take inspiration from your art and concepts? I've been in a situation in recent years where another artist has taken far, far too much. It's a subject I'm pretty burnt out on. I recently saw another artist's take on this and it looked sensible to me. I'm just going to quote theirs. I have tried to find my own words, but right now I find myself more comfortable using someone else's. "Well, if you’re having to ask me for permission, either your design is too similar or you’re being overly nervous about a normal artistic process. You’re absolutely free to use my work as a source of inspiration but I’d strongly encourage you to think about the details from my design you like most, and remix them with other concepts into your own unique take."

Taking inspiration is something everyone does, but please don't become a shadow I get bi-weekly alerts about. Ideally your pool of inspiration will be many artists and concepts re-imagined into something unique to you- and that you're being honest with yourself about the result.

Your art is being copied! / Will you tell me who the copy cat is? I get a lot of messages about this and am tired. I'm sure if my art ends up somewhere it shouldn't be or there's something really worth my attention I'll find out through friends. Otherwise, I'm just sayin' get a second or third opinion before coming to my inbox. I probably already know about it.

I sent you a message and you didn't respond. Sorry about that. I tend not to stress about messages because it can be a drain. You're more likely to get a response if you let me know from the get go what you want, but nothing is guaranteed. Sometimes I didn't see it, sometimes I got busy or forgot, sometimes I plan to do it later, sometimes I just opted out. It's not personal. Where do you Rp? Are you looking for more partners? Discord mostly. Roleplay consumes a lot of time so these days I mostly only play with my buddy Thema. I probably wouldn't have time to play, but I like to hang around people that do and I don't mind being asked. Just please don't be sad if I never get around to responding! I'm most compatible with people who are comfortable with radio silence.

Can I use your characters in roleplay/as roleplay refs? Considering I actively roleplay my OCs and there's a potential for confusion, I'd rather you didn't. Though I think there's a difference between linking to my art and saying 'this is my character', and linking to it to say 'this has the mood I'm going for, but here's what's different about my character--'. The latter is fine.

Can I make Fan OCs for your setting? Thinking about this makes me tired. Maybe I'll get to a point where I'm more comfortable later, but for now I'd rather you didn't make something directly from my worlds. But lets be real, you don't need my permission to draw cat monsters and I take a huge amount of inspiration from ancient history. Many of my concepts are inspired by things that you can read about and be inspired too. If you see something and are curious if there's a historical source, just ask. Hopefully I'll remember.

Do I have permission to draw NSFW art of your characters? No, for a plethora of reasons, some easy to explain and some not, but I probably can't stop you. Just don't profit off of it or show it to me.

Do you have a website for your OCs? I have RP pages for them scattered all over the place and many of them are outdated, but as I type this I recently put some up on Toyhouse. https://toyhou.se/GreekCeltic

Do you have a website for your comic? Sure do. It's an expensive fuck. https://catswaycomic.com/ When does your comic update? Sporadically. I work on it when I have time. My income is solely freelance commissions and Patreon- mostly commissions.

There's other places you could post your comic! Yeah, I know. I may do that someday, but for now I like having my own house, even if it's an expensive fuck. (Not really, the renewal just hits around tax time, Lol).

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (1x01): "The Vanishing of Will Byers" Review

NOTE: Two years ago, I announced plans for reviews for each of the Stranger Things episodes before S5 premiered. Because of multiple obligations that came up in those years, from work, to training for a marathon, to plans with family and friends, to dealing with other personal issues, this kept getting pushed back multiple times. Now that I have the opportunity this year, I'm aiming to do a full in-depth analysis of each episode, along with analysis of the characters and story arcs present in each season, while also speculating on how the Duffer Brothers plan to end the show.

I will admit that I did a semi-review of the first episode (split into two posts) back in November 2023 in honor of Stranger Things Day. However, at the time, that was me experimenting with a different review style rather than the in-depth analysis I want to aim for with these reviews (though I will be taking certain quotes from that particular semi-review for this specific episode as it does contain some interesting observations I took note of at the time). I have also done reviews for the tie-in materials Netflix, Random House Publishing, and Dark Horse Comics have put out, and given my thoughts on characters, arcs, and potential theories there (you can see my pinned page for links to those), but I also recognize not all fans will have read those materials, and the episodes hold more importance in terms of continuity and canon.

On top of that, another reason for the delay was researching multiple sources of media (books, movies, other TV shows, comics, etc) that the Duffer Brothers have cited as inspiration for how they wrote and structured Stranger Things, as well as how they crafted certain arcs and characters. These reviews will be citing those sources, and even doing a compare/contrast at times to understand why the Duffer Brothers went the direction they did, and whether (IMO) it made things better or worse. I also plan to do a deep dive into the themes the show presents, how those themes continue to be relevant to today's culture, and how the show acts as both a homage to the 80s as well as a deconstruction of it.

Before I begin though, there are a few points that need to be made:

1.) These will be long reviews because there's a lot to discuss. I will try my best NOT to split each episode into two or three posts and contain them to just one per episode. There will be no TL;DR however.

2.) I am writing these for my own interest and for the 4-5 mutuals who follow me (they know who they are). I'm okay if these get liked or reblogged by others, or if people want to leave comments, but I'm not writing these for a wider audience. This is my passion project for 2025, and I intend to enjoy it, regardless of others opinions. Which brings me to number 3.......

3.) I am fine with people disagreeing with my takes, or having dissenting opinions, but if you come on here being rude, condescending, belittling, or behave like an asshole, you're getting blocked. I will not indulge that behavior, and I won't even respond to you if you pull that.

With that out the way......let's get started:

In terms of a Pilot episode, not only do I think this is one of the best I've seen on TV, but it's one that's improved over time and has great rewatch value. There's a lot of subtext and foreshadowing planted in the first episode that not only comes to fruition later in S1, but also sets up aspects that are paid off in future seasons. I know the Duffer Brothers have said that season 1 was originally conceived as an anthology/miniseries (based on the original pitch and whether the show would get renewed), and given how nervous they were about whether Stranger Things would be a success, I can see why they would play it safe with Netflix at the time. However, there is evidence suggesting they had certain story elements and ideas ready to go if they were allowed to continue past season 1. At the time though, this season was "make it or break it" and if it hadn't gotten the audience and appeal that it did, it probably would have gone the way of Freaks and Geeks (a show also set in the 80s that the Duffer Brothers have cited as an inspiration for Stranger Things) in being cancelled before it could reach its potential.

Thankfully, that didn't happen, and not only did the show continue, but it also went forward with the same cast and crew that we would grow to love.

Part 1: Montauk vs. The Vanishing of Will Byers (and why changes aren't necessary a bad thing):

George R.R. Martin once said there are two types of writers: Architects and Gardeners. Architect writers are usually the ones who plan everything in advance to know what the structure is and how everything in a story is going to fit together. Gardeners are more spontaneous in that they will plant something and see whether it develops into anything. Obviously, they will tend to the seed (or in this case, the idea/story/character the writers has introduced), but it's more of a mystery how it will grow, or if it will blossom at all. Some plants/ideas grow into something beautiful. Others fall short. And some don't even make it out of the ground.

If I were to make an educated guess on which one the Duffer Brothers were, based on what their original script was (Montauk) vs what it evolved into (Stranger Things), I would argue they're the rare breed of writers/directors who fall in the middle of being both Architects AND Gardeners. Looking at the way they pitched Montauk in its original form, it's pretty clear they did have a general story planned out (like an architect), and even the original script contained planted ideas/seeds (like a gardener) that may or may not have panned out.

But just like any architect or gardener, that doesn't mean things are set in stone. If an architect discovers flaws in the blueprints (or realizes that the building plan isn't practical with how it's originally designed), they're going to go back and make changes. Same with a gardener: If a plant doesn't spring up or ripen, it doesn't mean they give up and abandon the project. Any good gardener will prune that which isn't working, or figure out why the plant didn't grow the first time and start again in a better environment.

And in the case of how Montauk evolved into this episode, and how they structured the rest of season 1, I would argue most of these changes were for the better.

Let's look at the original setting for instance: Montauk's premise is centered around the infamous mystery regarding The Montauk Project. These were a series of alleged experiments that took place at Camp Hero, a base owned and operated by the United States Air Force, in the town of Montauk, New York, between 1971 and 1983.

These experiments are chronicled in several books written by Preston B. Nichols, an alleged scientist who worked on the Montauk Project and claimed to have been witness to bizarre and inhumane experiments centered on mind control, time travel, alternate realities, psychics, and the apparent aid of aliens from the distant stars.

Having read the first book, Experiments in Time, and watched the documentary Montauk Chronicles (which is two hours of my life I'm never getting back), I can attest to this being a huge rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that have no solid evidence or concrete proof, other than the word of the author and the people in the documentary who claim they either worked at Camp Hero or were used as experiments in the Montauk Project. As a science fiction story, it's a mind-trip wrapped in a mystery, and I can understand why the Duffer Brothers would find it fascinating enough to write a show around. However, outside of that, the whole idea taken as fact (which is what Preston and the documentary aims for) is outlandish and even self-indulgent at times. Maybe this is just my cynicism talking, but after so many years of seeing people on both the Right and the Left fall into QAnon levels of thinking, or having moron politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and organizations like Code Pink spewing garbage conspiracies, I find that my patience is pretty thin in regards to topics like this.

All of this factors into why I'm not bothered that the show changed the setting from Montauk, New York to Hawkins, Indiana, as well as creating an original mythology for Stranger Things centered around Hawkins Lab as opposed to basing the entire show on a real-life conspiracy that some people would have swallowed wholeheartedly and claim was actual truth. The Duffer Brothers have admitted that the change in location was based on practicality, weather (Long Island is freezing cold during winter and it would have been miserable trying to film there during the season), budget, and having more flexibility with what they could do with a fictional town vs setting the story in a real town to correlate with specific events in the past and NOT have that break suspension of disbelief.

In spite of moving away from the premise of the Montauk Project, there are certain elements the Duffer Brothers kept:

1.) The Philadelphia Experiment (Project Rainbow). A.K.A The fate of the USS Eldridge in 1943. This was the precursor for why and how The Montauk Project got off the ground. While "The Vanishing of Will Byers" doesn't specifically mention this particular incident, it is brought up in the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, and anyone who's seen the play can tell you that it is a MAJOR PLOT POINT central to the show's mythology regarding the Upside Down, and the characters of Dr. Brenner, Vecna, and El. If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the play, or even read my review if you're looking for a quick summary.

2.) The connection between someone with special powers and the monster that's unleashed as a result of their actions. In the book Experiments in Time, there was a psychic named Duncan Cameron who had worked on the project for years and, through the use of a transmitter connected to a chair that he sat in during sessions, was able to create physical objects with his mind. After Preston and several of his colleagues expressed misgivings about their work, due to how it was messing with the space-time continuum and the number of people they were callously sacrificing for the project, they formulated a plan with Duncan to have him use his subconscious to form a monster that would destroy Camp Hero. In 1983 (the same year the first season of Stranger Things takes place), Duncan unleashed the monster to cause chaos.

While the beast eventually dissolved into the Ether after power to the transmitter was cut, it resulted in the base being permanently shut down.

As evident by Stranger Things, there are parallels between Duncan and Eleven in that both have special powers and worked in a top-secret government facility. The difference is that Duncan was psychic whereas El is psychokinetic. Duncan willingly worked on this project whereas El was a prisoner for years manipulated into working on behalf of Dr. Brenner. Unlike Duncan, her release of the Demogorgon and opening the Gate to a different dimension was an accident and not premeditated, in contrast to Duncan knowingly opening a vortex in time for people to travel to different time periods. And while the monster unleashed on Camp Hero was a creation of Duncan, that turns out not to be the case with the Demogrogon, with El having nothing to do with its creation.

The Montauk script implies that the Duffer Brothers were originally planning to recreate the same story beats as Experiments In Time, even right down to the last scene:

I am curious is this was supposed to be the first appearance of the Mind Flayer before they moved it to season 2. If it was, 1.) I'm glad they waited for that reveal and didn't tip their hand too early (especially since they had planned for 4-5 seasons) and adhered to the rule of "Less is Better." And 2.) It gives the impression that characters like the Mind Flayer (and even Vecna) had been planned out from the beginning, and were eventually going to be introduced, regardless of whether they stuck to the Montauk mythology or not.

Alternatively, there is the possibility this may have been meant to reference the Radiosondes from The Montauk Project. Long story short, this was an alleged device created by the government that manipulated the amount of DOR (i.e. energy in a descending spiral) and orgone energy (i.e. orgasmic or life energy, similar to Isaac Newton's idea of Ether) in a weather-related storm. It's the idea that the government has a device that can control the weather.

Yeah.......it's easy to see why this didn't age well, and why I'm glad the Duffer Brothers went a different direction. Even this would have been too much, and sounds like something that belongs on a show like The X Files as opposed to Stranger Things.

Speaking of different directions, the original script was a lot gorier than this episode. We're talking about mutilated and burnt bodies once the monster is unleashed:

Even Will's encounter with the monster plays out differently:

It's interesting that the original idea behind the Demogorgon was that it acted as a disruptive metaphysical force that could cause a person to start bleeding profusely. As if its mere presence was something that mere mortals couldn't handle being around, or even looking at without suffering some sort of physical or mental breakdown. The Duffer Brothers have cited Lovecraftian horror as an inspiration for how the Upside Down and its inhabitants were structured, and that is shown in this episode with the slime, vines and rotting mold growing out of the Gate, as well as how the Gate itself breathes like it's a mouth sucking air:

In regards to the change with the Demogorgon, where they got rid of the "humans start bleeding if they're anywhere near it" aspect, it hearkens back to the principle of "Less is Better." One of the brilliant things the Duffer Brothers did was introduce the horror gradually, with season 1 paying homage heavily to Steven Spielberg and movies like Poltergeist, as opposed to immediately going for gory shock value the same way shows like Elfen Lied, True Blood, Game of Thrones, and The Boys did. It was inevitable this show would eventually introduce bloodier aspects, like the Flayed in S3 and Vecna's mutilation of his victims in S4, but those instances felt earned as the show progressed and moved away from lighter aspects in order to explore darker and more mature themes.

Part 2: Will getting dragged to the Upside Down

Parallels between Will's disappearance and Carol Anne's situation in Poltergeist (which is referenced in this very episode) have been drawn before, but there is another reference that often isn't brought up, which Poltergeist owes acknowledgment to for its story: The episode "Little Girl Lost" from The Twilight Zone.

Similar to Poltergeist, "Little Girl Lost" features a girl named Bettina Miller who disappears one night into another dimension. Unlike Carol Anne or even Will, this happens on accident when she falls through a portal at the wall of her bed. The main premise is still the same though: The parents of the disappeared kid desperately attempt to find where this portal leads and rescue them before it's too late. Like "Little Girl Lost," a dog is featured that's aware of the alternate dimension, but the big difference is that the dog in said episode (whose name is Mack) was able to follow Bettina into the other dimension and help lead her back to her parents whereas Chester, the dog in Stranger Things does clue Hopper into the area where Will disappeared, but isn't able to follow him into the Upside Down:

(Side Tangent: I think there was a story opportunity missed here with the dog. It's made ambiguous if its barking at the shed is because it was Will's last known location, or because it can sense Will's presence despite being in the Upside Down, or it's somehow aware of the Upside Down, but the idea of animals having some kind of sense regarding the Upside Down and the eldritch abominations that exist there and are hostile to it (similar to how living creatures flee the presence of the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings) was ripe for potential. However, I am aware that the reason Chester disappears after season 1 is because David Harbour had problems working with the dog, so any potential for that story arc likely went out the window. Though if UD monsters start appearing frequently in the woods during season 5, maybe they might explore that arc again. Who knows?)

Carol Anne's disappearance in Poltergeist initially appears as a random accident, especially with the revelation at the end of the movie regarding where the Freeling family lives, but it's implied in the movie (and later confirmed by its sequels) that she was intentionally targeted by a monster called "The Beast" (who's later revealed to be a malevolent spirit named Henry Kane) for his own nefarious purposes. Interestingly (and something I'll discuss more when I review "Holly Jolly") the BTS photos of S5 that they've revealed of Holly and Vecna together (with Vecna even wearing an old-fashioned suit like Henry Kane did as a preacher) implies they might actually use aspects of the Poltergeist trilogy for what they do with Holly's story in season 5.

Getting back to Will, I've talked about this before in my review of The Other Side (which chronicled the events of season 1 from Will's perspective in the Upside Down, and is a comic I highly recommend reading), but given the revelations in season 4 regarding Vecna and the UD freezing in place on November 6th, 1983 (the same night Will disappeared), it changes the context regarding what happens to Will in this episode. Instead of it just being the Demogorgon randomly stumbling onto Will (the way season 1 initially frames it), it comes off like Will's disappearance was planned by either Vecna or The Mind Flayer (or both) for a yet unrevealed reason. I've held to the theory that Will somehow had to do with the Upside Down freezing in time. Or at the very least, there is something Vecna wants from Will. The fact that Jamie Campbell Bower has stated in interviews that Will is central to this whole conflict (something that was confirmed by the Duffer Brothers when Bower went to talk to them), as well as how both Noah Schnapp and Bower have talked about there's unfinished business between the two of them (Vecna and Will), only confirms that.

Part 3: Changes to Characters (and why it works better in the final product):

Just like the changes to location and story beats helped improve the show and allowed the Duffer Brothers more creativity in constructing the show's mythology, the same can be said for changes made to the characters that helped improve them and the story.

Take Dustin's arc for instance. In the Montauk screenplay, and the original outline the Duffer Brothers drafted before revising it, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on Dustin's weight and how would impact his character going forward:

I'm sure there are fans who have accused the Duffer Brothers of engaging in fat shaming, and while the original script is iffy on this (the line from the original script about how Dustin will be fat later as an adult doesn't help) the way the outline frames the fat shaming itself is in a negative light. It's portrayed as detrimental for Dustin, with him being made the target of bullying because of it, and having to work to gain self-confidence to overcome his insecurities surrounding it.

However, the way Dustin was originally written may have also been a callback to certain 80s characters who were the butt of jokes about their weight and eating habits, such as Vern Tessio from Stephen King's Stand By Me and Lawrence "Chunk" Cohen from The Goonies, and I can understand why fans would have a major problem with this, especially if the Duffer Brothers blurred the lines between calling out the fat shaming Dustin would've experienced vs indulging in it. Look at F.R.I.E.N.D.S for instance in its portrayal of Monica Geller and how the writers alternated between showing the negative impact fat shaming had on Monica vs the constant jokes made at her expense, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or even Avengers Endgame and what they did to Thor's character in that movie.

So for me, I'm fine with the Duffer Brothers not going that direction because I'm wary about whether they would have stumbled into that pitfall. I also think the decision to write in Gaten Matarazzo's condition of cleidocranial dysostosis (CCD) works better and even helps raise awareness regarding genetic birth defects people have while also humanizing them, similar to the Eric Stoltz film Mask (1985) (another movie the Duffer Brothers cited as an inspiration for Stranger Things) and the way Rocky Dennis's condition was portrayed and how he dealt with it.

Likewise, the way they rewrote Lucas for the show, from an angry loudmouthed kid whose parents were getting a divorce (and was set to cause problems for the group later on), to a kid who's blunt about his opinions, undergoes positive character development, has a stable family and loving parents (Charles Sinclair is one of the few characters who doesn't fall into the "Deadbeat and/or Abusive Dads" club), and maintains his loyalty to the Party despite his disagreements with them works a helluva lot better. I also think the decision to reverse Lucas's crush on Nancy and giving it to Dustin was a good choice in hindsight since it freed Lucas for his future relationship with Max.

Mike also has some minor changes made to his character. The original screenplay talks about him having a birthmark on his cheek, making him a target for bullies, as well as a possible crush on another girl named Jennifer Hayes before he meets Eleven.

It's similar to the character of Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks, who had a crush on another girl in school named Cindy Sanders (before Cindy revealed herself to be a jerk) and was also initially bullied for his physical appearance. I can see why they cut Jennifer from the script since she was superfluous as they intended for Mike to fall in love with El and have her be his first crush. As for removing the birthmark, that may have had to do with casting, the decision to write Gaten's CCD into Dustin's character and have that be the reason he's targeted by bullies like Troy and James, or they simply figured that having Mike get bullied for being a nerd was enough. In either case, one thing that they kept consistent with Mike in both the original script and the final product (which unfortunately carries over to season 4) is his passivity to bullies (though he certainly becomes a lot snarkier than he is here).

Interestingly, Will is the one character that remains consistent with both the original script and this episode. Aside from tweaking his encounter with the Demogorgon so he isn't pleading with the monster (and being horrified when it appears behind him despite having locked the shed door), his characterization remains the same. Just look at how he was described in the Montauk pitch:

This also carries over to the conversation in Joyce has with Hopper at the police station about Will's clothes and being referred to as 'queer.' The implication here is that, even if they had gone with the original screenplay, there was always the intention of eventually revealing that Will was gay. Maybe the revelation wouldn't have happened in the first season of Montauk, and they would have dropped subtle hints beforehand (just like the first 3 seasons did), but, contrary to the homophobic idiots out there who want to pretend LGBT+ people didn't exist in the 80s, this was the direction they intended to go with Will's character from the beginning.

There are other minor changes that work better:

Hopper's establishing character moment of waking up, smoking, and downing pills with beer is the same, but unlike in the original screenplay, this is the first image we see before we pan over to Hopper:

It's a small scene, but it makes a huge difference (especially on rewatch) in how the show quietly foreshadows WHY Hopper has become like this as opposed to in the Montauk Pilot (which doesn't mention this scene at all in the screenplay), helps make his initial apathetic behavior more understandable, and cues the audience in quicker to his depression.

Joyce's swearing and casual use of F-Bombs is absent in this episode, and the 1982 flashback of her entering Castle Byers to give Will tickets to Poltergeist is added in as a way of emphasizing her, caring, motherly side while toning down her impatient outbursts.

Jonathan's character also remains the same, albeit some minor changes, from how he was written in the original version: He still acts as both a loving brother and a parental figure to Will, as well as supportive of his mom. The difference is his reason for not catching that Will wasn't home the night before: In the Montauk script, it's because he was busy getting photographs developed and didn't come home until later. In this episode, it's because he picked up another shift to help his mom. It's a change that does a better job showing how Jonathan is forced to shoulder a lot of responsibilities for the family since Lonnie left. It also makes Joyce's frustration with Jonathan overworking himself more understandable, as opposed to the Montauk script where their exchange comes off like she's lashing out at him:

Mr. Clarke goes from a handsome teacher the girls fawn over to a more traditional science teacher with the same passion for his subject. The scene with him showing Mike, Lucas, and Dustin the Heathkit Hamshack Radio is also a new addition, which does a good job highlighting why the boys like him so much as a teacher, and also avoids them being publicly drawn out of their class to speak to the principal and Hopper over Will's disappearance. They also cut parts of the conversation with Mr. Clarke and Hopper in the woods that would have revealed when they both graduated. This was definitely for the best because the date of Hopper's graduation in the original script (1958) would have been a major continuity error when they wrote Hopper still being in high school for The First Shadow.

El's age is changed to 12 instead of 10, likely as a means of keeping El and Mike the same age for their relationship, and so they could later have El attend public school in S4 in the same grade as her friends, which the Duffer Brothers have admitted was an arc they'd wanted to explore with El for a while. There's also a reference to a Tommy that El calls her "little brother," which may have initially been a subtle nod to James Cameron's Aliens with the character of Newt and how she had a brother named Timmy who fell prey to the Xenomorphs. Considering that the Duffer Brothers have mentioned that all of the other special kids, with the exception of Eight, were dead when they initially conceived the story for Hawkins Lab, it's likely Tommy was meant to be Eight before they rewrote the character to be El's older sister Kali Prasad once season 2 was underway.

Dr. Brenner is noticeably not named in the Pilot script, and his dialogue is spoken by someone called "Agent One." The way he's described, along with the other two Agents, reminds me strongly Agent Smith from The Matrix. Furthermore, the script implies he has some kind of relationship with Eleven, and considering he's already calling the shots in regards to the investigation, it's clear Dr. Brenner evolved from Agent One, with the addition of having him be in charge of Hawkins Lab.

The biggest change in regards to characters (and one that the fanbase tends to fixate on) is how Steve's character is written here vs in the Montauk script, and by extension how that impacts the way Nancy and Barbara were written. I will go more in-depth about these three characters in the next episode, but there are important things to note here:

1.) Contrary to how the Montauk script killed Barbara off in the first episode, I prefer how they did it on the show where her role was expanded for two more episodes after this one, and we at least got the chance to know her better before her death. #JusticeForBarb wouldn't have the momentum it did after season 1 if it hadn't been for the Duffer Brothers keeping her around longer than intended and fleshing out her character.

2.) I hold that the conflict brought up between Nancy and Barbara about her interest in Steve, and how much of this is based on the two actually liking one another vs social status and how this relationship would be perceived by others, is a lot more nuanced than its been made out to be by the fandom. It also makes the motivations behind all three characters complex as opposed to shallow and simplistic. Had the show gone with the original Montauk script, it would have removed that complexity regarding Nancy's reasons for liking Steve, Steve's reasons for being interested in her, and Barb's ambivalence about the two of them getting together. That's not even getting into how "Popular Douchebag wanting to get into another girl's pants" is a trope that's been done to death way before Stranger Things was ever written, so it's nice to see this trope subverted instead of taking the cliche route of playing it straight.

3.) I will talk more about this in future episodes, but ironically enough, by rewriting Steve's character, they actually manage to improve Nancy's character. Rather than coming off as a shallow brat pining for the rich popular dude (while referring to Mike's friends as "losers" in the process) and ignoring all the warning signs that Montauk!Steve couldn't care less about her, she comes off as someone who is trying something new with her relationship with Steve, but also establishes boundaries and isn't shy about calling out Steve if she thinks Steve is behaving badly. We see this even before her make-out session in the bathroom when both she and Barbara express their disdain for becoming friends with Tommy and Carol (Tommy is still as shitty in the Montauk script as he is in the final product), indicating that while they might tolerate Tommy and Carol for the sake of Nancy's relationship with Steve, they do not like them (rightfully so), nor have any intention of becoming friends with them. Same thing goes for how she deals with preparing for Mrs. Kaminsky's test (whose named Mrs. Krietzberg in the Montauk script): In the original screenplay, she basically blows off studying, sneaks out of the house to go to a bonfire, and gets put in an extremely horrific situation as a result. In this episode: While she does flirt with Steve, she is pretty firm in telling him her priority is studying for the test, and even brings up the question of whether Steve actually cares about her, or if this is just "another notch under his belt." It makes Nancy look a lot more responsible and intelligent than she was in the Montauk script. Which brings me to Steve.........

4.) Again, I will discuss the difference between the sex scene between Nancy and Steve on the show vs how it was originally supposed to go in the next episode, but in regards to how they wrote Steve.......I will always maintain the direction they took his character was a better choice, not just because they cast Joe Keery in the role, but for the story as a whole. It's easy to write hateful characters who have no depth to them (looking at Troy, James, Tommy, Carol, Angela, and Jake to name a few 😒), but it's a whole different ballpark when you have to write characters who have unlikable qualities (or in Steve's case, start out with unlikable qualities), but also have hidden depths to them that show they have potential to be decent people and get the audience to invest in them. Steve is one such character, and a far more interesting one than the Montauk version.

Take for instance the difference between Montauk!Steve vs Stranger Things Steve: In the show, it's stated in dialogue to Barbara that Nancy and Steve made out a couple of times, establishing this relationship had been ongoing for a while, and leading to speculation about where they take things from here. Furthermore, the way Nancy and Steve's make-out session in the bathroom is filmed comes off as a lot more consensual (helped by the immediate jump-cut to Steve and Nancy in the bathroom following her conversation with Barbara) compared to the original draft where Nancy has NOT been in a relationship with Steve at this point, and Steve just comes out of nowhere and starts kissing her when she doesn't expect it. It doesn't help that the Montauk script already spells out what his motivations are:

The problem with this is it takes away any mystery regarding Steve's motivations. It also makes it hard to invest in Nancy's decision to sneak out of the house to meet up with Steve because we already know it's going to end badly for her.

By contrast, Nancy commitment in this episode to study for her test and Steve's volunteering to help her raises an intriguing question: Is he actually doing this because he cares about her, or is he doing this for selfish reasons? It's a question that drives part of the episode, and helps keep the drama fresh instead of one-note.

In regards to Steve climbing through Nancy's window (and making such a hash of it that even Mike is rolling his eyes while he leaves the house with his bike), I always took this as a homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street (and even watched the movie three months before bingeing the first season of Stranger Things) where the main character (who's also named Nancy) had a consenting arrangement with her boyfriend Glen where he would show up at her bedroom window to avoid her parents and she would let him in and later help him sneak out once they were done talking. Considering that Steve informed her about coming to her house around 8:00pm and Nancy let him stay to study, I'm not remotely interested in doing the hysterical pearl-clutching about the ethics of this like Steve-Antis on Reddit and Tumblr want to. 🙄

Finally, with the way the study session goes, it hearkens back to my previous points: Steve is being challenged by Nancy about his reasons for coming over, and unlike the original script that spells out Steve's sleazy motivation (and kills any interest in that version of the character as a result), this Steve shows a different side: He projects the cool, popular, IDGAF image that might have made other girls attracted to him, but when Nancy makes it clear she isn't really interested in doing anything sexual, he lays off and continues to help her prepare for her test, showing he DOES actually care about what she thinks. Add on the clumsy way he sneaks into Nancy's bedroom, combined with his "stealthy like a ninja line" (which wasn't in the original script), and the Duffer Brothers are already setting the groundwork of the image Steve projects to others vs who he actually is on the inside. I will happily take that kind of character study any day of the week.

Part 4: Subtext and Foreshadowing:

Like I said before, there's a lot that's set up in this episode, and it's fun going back and picking up on tibits that not only foreshadow what will happen in season 1, but also foreshadows later seasons and contains multiple 80s references.

The opening with the scientist attempting to escape the Demogorgon, only to be pulled through the roof of the elevator by it is not just a homage to Ridley Scott's Alien, but specifically to Brett's death scene in the movie:

The main difference is, unlike with the Xenomorph, we don't see the Demogorgon yet since the Duffer Brothers are adhering to the principle established in Steven Spielberg's Jaws: Waiting for a certain amount of time (in this case, a few episodes) before revealing what the monster looks like, and build anticipation and dread in the audience as a result.

In regards to the D&D campaign that introduces Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas, one thing I failed to notice first time around was the poster of John Carpenter's The Thing in the background. It can be assumed the movie is one of Mike's favorites since I seriously doubt anyone else in his family would have been fans of it. Even though it's likely meant as just a reference (and the whole idea of body horror and assimilation from a monster will play a bigger role in S3 with the Flayed), it does foreshadow the conflict that will erupt between Mike and Lucas in future episodes.

For those who haven't seen the movie, John Carpenter's The Thing centers around an alien threat being brought unintentionally into a research facility on Antarctica that has the ability to assimilate and imitate creatures and people, which it uses to kill off the human crew in gory detail. The two main characters are R.J. MacReady (played by Kurt Russell) and Childs (played by Keith David), and the main drama of the movie centers on their conflict over how to deal with this "Thing" as tensions grow and hostiles threaten to turn everyone against each other. Both characters have parallels to Mike and Lucas in that they both have the Party's best interests in mind, but disagree over how to handle it, and it eventually comes to a boiling point where trust is shattered. Childs is (rightfully) suspicious of everyone around him in the movie, similar to how Lucas is suspicious of Eleven when she's first introduced, and even clashes with Mike over his leadership and decision-making in regards over how this helps Will, similar to Childs's antagonism towards MacReady's leadership and how his actions are impacting the research crew. Likewise, MacReady and Mike act as the unofficial leaders of the Party, make decisions with the consent of everyone, but also take stances that put them at odds with the people around them. Both Mike and MacReady also share stubbornness as a trait, which becomes a problem later on when they're trying to rally their respective groups.

As for everything else in this scene (including both Will and Dustin), the semi-review I did over a year ago which talked about that scene in detail sums it up best, and I'm going to quote it here:

"They do a good job with the establishing character moments for both Dustin and Lucas in Mike’s D&D campaign: Dustin telling Will to use caution and cast a protective spell while Lucas insists Will fireballs the Demogorgon while he has the chance. Lucas’s strategy is to go on the offense while Dustin’s is to go on the defense. Specifically with Lucas, he uses that strategy in other situations he’s in: Like when Lucas kicks Billy in the groin in S2 after being pinned to the wall by him, or gets an axe to chop at the Meat Flayer’s tendril to save El in S3, or even how Lucas is the one who later convinces everyone to take the fireworks from the store to use as ammunition (which helps turn the tide at the Battle of Starcourt). By contrast, Dustin prioritizes the safety of the Party, from pointing out to Mike and Lucas that they might be walking into the same danger Will encountered when they later look for him in the woods, to telling Mike NOT to jump off a cliff when Troy threatens Dustin, to enlisting Steve’s help in S2 because he knows Steve will be able to protect them due to his size and skill with the bat, to rescuing Steve and Robin from the Russians in S3. This isn’t to say that Lucas is wrong and Dustin is right, or even that Dustin is wrong and Lucas is right. It’s merely noting they have opposite approaches. Each situation they encounter is different, and sometimes (just like with Will’s dice role) it’s really up to chance. Also (as noted later in the episode by Mike), Will took Lucas’s advice and used fireball as a means of protecting the Party instead of trying to save himself. He puts other people’s safety before his own. The comic book “The Other Side” (which focuses on Will’s perspective during the events of S1 while trapped in the UD) expands on this aspect of his personality by including several moments of him coming to the aid of others (including Nancy) while in the UD, despite knowing it would put him in danger. Also, regardless of Lucas insisting the role doesn’t count because Mike didn’t see it, Will still chooses to be honest with Mike. He knows there are situations you can’t cheat your way out of, or pretend didn’t happen (as he’s about to find out with the real Demogorgon)."

In regards to mythology related to the Upside Down, there are some references that could come into play in season 5:

First is the mention of monsters like the Troglodytes in this episode. While they may be a simple D&D monster reference, considering the final season is implying there will be an invasion of monsters from the Upside Down, the Duffer Brothers could choose to introduce new creatures that the Party could give these names to. Troglodytes in D&D are a reptilian-humanoid species that's known for their stench, their bloodthirst, their desire to prey on innocent travelers, their short-sited stupidity, and their inability to plan in the long run.

Their characteristics have similarities to the goblins in the Artemis Fowl series, especially in their ability to be manipulated by the antagonists in those books to creating general chaos and kill as many people as they can get their hands on. Since Vecna and the Mind Flayer have long since abandoned the stealth approach they used in the first two seasons, if they're looking for a direct brutal attack that will rake up a high body count and happen to have creatures in the UD similar to troglodytes, they will inevitably be throwing these at the military stationed in Hawkins.

Same goes for the Thessalhydra that's mentioned in the S1 finale:

Considering that the vision Vecna showed Nancy in S4 involved a creature with a "big gaping mouth," we will likely be seeing a version of the Thessalhydra appear in the final season.

Adding on to this, there's a reference made to Mirkwood from The Lord of the Rings, which is one of the places inhabited by giant malicious spiders. Originally, they had planned to introduce a new creature on top of the Demobats in S4 called the Demospiders:

Even though those plans got scrapped in favor of the Demobats, there's nothing stopping the Duffer Brothers from formally introducing them in S5. And considering that the BTS photos for S5 have emphasized Castle Byers and Mirkwood, I wouldn't be surprised if Demospiders made their appearance there. Just like with D&D, references and even parallels to LOTR have been dropped, and it wouldn't be remiss to use Tolkien's books as a blueprint for the direction they could go in S5.

Speaking of references, comics like X-Men and Fantastic Four are brought up in this episode. When Will races Dustin for instance, the prize is the X-Men #134 comic, which features the X-Men against the Hellfire Club (Wonder if that's where the Duffer Brothers got the name for Eddie's D&D club? 🤔) and contains foreshadowing for the S1 finale regarding the Demogorgon's eventual fate, as well as a direct parallel between how Jean Grey/Phoenix deals with Mastermind:

BTW, I actually bought the comic and now own it! 😁

Additionally, after Troy and James get done with making fun of Dustin for his CCD, Mike tries to make Dustin feel better by comparing him to Mr. Fantastic and trying to get Dustin to see his CCD as a cool superpower. This is a general theme that will persist on this show: That being an outsider or a nerd isn't a bad thing, and can even be a "superpower" if the characters choose to see it as such and use it. The fact these characters also go to the lengths to support and uplift each other in spite of the world putting them down (similar to the constant discrimination the X-Men face, which forces them to rely on one another for support) also strengthens this theme.

Speaking of uplifting others, let's talk about Benny and his encounter with El.

I didn't appreciate the significance of this interaction the first time I saw this scene, but given what's revealed in El's flashbacks to the Lab, the way she was bullied and abused by the other kids (with the possible exception of Kali/Eight who later escaped), and how she was groomed and manipulated by both Dr. Brenner and Vecna........El's interaction with Benny is probably the first time she's experienced any type of kindness and human decency with no malicious motivations behind it. I mentioned in my previous semi-review that I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Brenner deprived her of food either as a means of getting results (which was the same reason he allowed the kids at the lab to repeatedly bully El) or as a means of punishment. That man was a monster, and one thing y'all are about to find out real fast is I don't have a lot of patience for him, or for the fans out there who make abuse apologies on his behalf.

In any case, Benny is an example not just of a decent person, but a perfect example of how to write a character for such a small role and still have them leave enough of an impact that the audience will miss them and be upset when they're gone. For all the flaws the Duffer Brothers have, they excel at this. Benny was one of them. Chrissy and Barbara were also great examples. All of them deserved better than the fates they were subjected to.

Speaking of which, there's nothing like human cruelty and stupidity to quickly snuff out compassion and decency, is there? 😒

I still hold the same opinion about Connie Frazier as I did before: Not only was her murder of Benny evil, it was downright moronic and caused so many unnecessary problems for Brenner and the government. Granted, I don't feel sympathy for Brenner or his goons, and I'm hard pressed to care they all suffered horrific consequences down the line, but damn! I pretty much summed it up best once before:

"I’ve questioned the logic of Connie killing Benny, especially because of how it drew unwanted attention (especially from Hopper of all people) when that’s likely the last thing Brenner and Hawkins Lab wanted. At this point, Benny was fully cooperating with Connie, and was about to give El to her since he believed Connie was from social services. There’s nothing in his conversation with Connie prior to his death that would’ve made her suspicious that Benny saw something he shouldn’t have, or that he believed there was something abnormal about El. It’s also notable that El doesn’t run when she first sees Connie at the door with Benny. She runs AFTER Connie shoots Benny. That implies that Connie was someone El hadn’t seen before, meaning Connie could have gotten El to come with her without fuss (and without arousing Benny’s suspicions) and then later hand her over to Brenner before El realized what was happening. If Connie had been ordered to kill Benny just for seeing El and wanting to keep her existence a secret, then at the very least, she should have waited until after they had El in their custody so that she wouldn’t be able to run away. Connie really screwed up here."

There seems to be an uneven ratio between decent people vs vile human beings. For every Benny, there's a Connie Frazier or Dr. Brenner or Colonel Sullivan in the wings. For every Chrissy, there are multiple Angelas. And for every Steve, there are multiple Billys and Jasons. 😒 I'm not just talking about on the show, but in real life as well. This past year alone has been eye-opening in that regard.

Part 5: Song Choices

It goes without saying I'm a big fan of 80s songs, and part of the anticipation I've had with the release of each season was based on what 80s songs would be featured in a given episode, and what context they'd be used in. Because of the sheer variety though, my aim will be focusing on songs that either are plot-relevant, are used to foreshadow certain story or character elements, or are connected to a character and what that says about them.

Two specific songs in this episode stand out: "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, and "Africa" by Toto. The first song plays when Benny is murdered by Connie, and El is forced to escape Brenner and his cronies. The second is played when Steve is helping Nancy study for her science test.

Like I've said, with the semi-reviews, in spite of their experimental nature, I did aim for analysis, especially in regards to the songs, and it's for that reason I'll let my quotes speak for themselves:

I love the song choice of “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane for the scene where El escapes Benny’s restaurant. The lyrics to the song were inspired by the book Alice in Wonderland, and the natural curiosity Alice has when she explores Wonderland (similar to El’s curiosity about the world outside of the lab). However, it was also about the type of drug-induced “trips” you take when you get high on psychedelics. Grace Slick, front-woman for Jefferson Airplane, argued Alice in Wonderland contained metaphorical drug references, like the caterpillar on a psychedelic mushroom smoking opium, or Alice eating something that causes her to become “too big for the room.” The song itself was written and released in the 60s when psychedelics like LSD were being used, and those same psychedelics were taken by El’s mom, Terry Ives, during the experiments she did at Hawkins Lab while pregnant with El.

I would like to take this time to amend and add on to a comment I made in that previous semi-review about the way El was created: While she was conceived during the time Terry was being experimented on with psychedelics, we know from S4, as well as the events of The First Shadow, that Vecna's blood was an important factor in Brenner replicating these kids, and that said blood was transfused into Terry while she was pregnant, resulting in El having her powers.

Finally, there's "Africa" by Toto:

Another song choice I liked was “Africa” by Toto for the Steve and Nancy scene. There’s always been a debate about what the lyrics mean (and from what I’ve heard, the band meant for the song to actually be about the continent of Africa rather than just a metaphor), but when I first heard the song years ago, I interpreted it as about a man being enamored by a woman, anticipating the moment when they get together, and wanting it to be a special moment. Given Steve’s interest (and flirtation) with Nancy in this scene, as well as his insistence to her that he doesn’t just see her as another notch under his belt and is truly invested in her, both he (and Nancy) want it to be a special moment as well.

All I'll add to this is the choice of song acts as a paradox in that it's oddly comforting, but also highlights the conflicting feelings in both Steve and Nancy about where their relationship goes from here.

Final Thoughts:

I know this review has ballooned, but there is (and always will be) a lot to talk about, not just in terms of characters and story arcs, or even homages to 80s trivia and media, but also in regards to real-life themes and how the issues that are brought up in Stranger Things continue to be relevant to today's culture. It's a big reason I'm passionate about this show, and why I want to discuss it.

On top of that, one thing I'm grateful that the Duffer Brothers carried over from the original Montauk pitch is this:

This, more than anything, is why I value this show, why I defend it against accusations that it's just "popcorn entertainment," why I argue there's more depth and intelligence to this show than people (especially on Reddit and Tumblr) give it credit for, and why I'm willing to go to bat for it (even in regards to writing choices I disagree with).

1 episode down. 33 more to go! 👍

[agentstarkid]

This little story turns one year old this July 31st!

We hopped with Girlie on a rollercoaster of finding (true) love, being quarantined in a foreign country, lots of internet meanies, making new friends, angst, heartbreak, depresh sesh, finding love again and so much more to come -- What a wild journey it's been, and I'm so proud I took the leap!

Looking back a year ago, I can't believe how far this story and I have come. I remember being so full of uncertainty and nerves to post that first chapter, and now, a whole year later, I'm writing little blurbs and one-shots in a whole different language to my main one.

And to celebrate this milestone with you guys, the DAN-Y/N stans out there, and as a thank you for all these 365 days of support and love to Danielito & Girlie's love story—a.k.a. my baby—, I put together a list of dialogue prompts from where you can pick one—or as many as you'd like—and send it to me so I can write a little blurb to go with it!

You can request a specific moment on the fic you'd like to see more (c'mooooon, they were together for 2 whole years! Let's see if you've been paying attention hehe), or just make a general request with a quote of your choice (or you can suggest one! Can't promise much on this, but I'd try my best to bring it to life, unless it is smut. I can't write smut for shitzels yet soz).

I'll be accepting resquests for the next 2 weeks!

✧. ┊ Series Masterlist

P.S. Fingers crossed next month I can—finally—post a new chapter! Adult life has been kicking my ass these past months so please be patient with me! — But my inbox is always open to talk! :)

— All the dialogue sources are linked!

“These are way too many, omg, I’m being squeezed by these pillows, love!” “Well I just, you know, thought that since you like to hold on to me while you sleep but we can’t do that right now, I decided to bring you all these.” “Aww, I appreciate it, baby, but would you mind moving some? And even though I do have these, I will miss your warmth beside me.” 

“You weren’t uncomfortable back there, right? I just wanted to make sure you were all right.” “No, no, I wasn’t. Thank you for doing that.”

"You had no business looking that good back there."

"Those could be our kids one day." "What...?" 

“They don’t know you, love. They don’t know how much we love each other. Let them think what they want to. It doesn’t matter, you know why? Because you are enough. We are enough.”

“I don’t want you to be perfect, sweetheart. I want you to be who you are.”

“I…I wasn’t sure if you’d like this, so I just bought all the colors they had there.”

“Stoooop. Stop making me all…” “All… what?”

“Sorry. I just... like seeing that I have an effect on you, I guess.”

“Life would suck complete testicles if it weren’t for you.” 

“I like seeing you this way. so… at ease. makes me wonder how anyone could ever purposely put you under stress and live with themselves afterwards.”

"I know you're struggling right now, and it's okay, okay? We'll get through this."

“With you, I see a forever I’ve never envisioned before. Not that I didn’t want to, it’s more because I wasn’t able to… At least until I met you.”

“God, I really don’t want to leave”.

“I’m so deftly terrified of falling in love. Because what if I end up with a broken heart? That thought itself is just so scary to me. I want to, but I can’t get over that fear.” “Then how about you let me be that first step you take into falling in love? I can help you get over that fear, if you’d let me.” 

“People say they fall in love like they fall asleep — slowly, then all at once. But the way I fell for you can only be described as that feeling when you’re drifting off to sleep, only to feel like you’re falling, oh-so-suddenly. So suddenly that it ends up startling you awake; heart racing in your chest because it feels like you fell off the precipice of a cliff. It’s quick and sudden, and there’s no slowness to it. It’s a crash and burn type of love that I feel.”

“They say the second time’s the charm.” “Was the first time not charming enough for you?” “No, but the second time’s going to be even better, I promise.” 

“If people can hate for no reason,  then I can love for no reason too.”

“I dunno who taught you that love comes with conditions and limitations, but mine doesn’t. Not when it’s you.”

“I don’t know how to ask for help i just— I’ve never had anyone to ask for help from before.  so…this is me trying i guess.  I need it and i’m afraid to ask for it.  That's the best I can do.”

“You really think a relationship should be that hard?” “No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.”

“If you don’t kiss me, right now…” “Then what?” “Then I will have to do it myself.”

"I think destiny wants us to be together, and you should never argue with destiny.”

“What do you think is our song?”

“I can’t concentrate, when you look at me like that.” “Well, you should be concentrating on me instead, so…”

“Sing for me.” “What would you like to hear?”

“I feel like I can breathe better with you around.”

“You’re much better off without me.” “You’re not the judge of that.”

“I love you, okay?! And I can’t stay in your life when I’m just ruining it.” “You can’t just say that and don’t wait for me to answer.”

“Your mom is coming over today.” “Tell her to bring fried rice or she’s not invited.” “You tell her, she’s your mom.” “But she likes you more!”

“Wait, you can’t swim?” “I was always more into sports on land where, you know, I can’t drown.” “I will teach you!”

“Every night before bed I write three good things that happened to me. And every night I find myself writing down your name.”

“God, don’t do that. You’re going to make me go on Santa’s naughty list tonight.”

“This heart belongs to you, and only you. And I’d hope you want to keep it for a very, very long time.”

“What matters isn’t the place, but the person you’re with at that place. So this is to say, being with you is enough for me. So long as you are there, then all is well.”

“If you don’t wanna spend the night in a empty house, you could always come over to mine.” 

"Hey, i think i can fit over here in this corner." "What are you, a plant?" "Maybe. you shine on me every day, after all."

“I don’t know what the future holds. all i know is that i hope you’re in it. “

“Annoying you is what I’m best at.”

“You get to curl up in my lap, and I get to watch a cinematic masterpiece in peace and quiet. i think this is a pretty sweet deal.”

“This is your home, just as it is mine.”

“That was your master plan? Really?” “No, my master plan was having no plan actually.”

“When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice into your enemies’ eyes and watch them whimper.”

“Maybe i'm too late to be your first, but right now, i'm preparing myself to be your last.”

“Over everything, I choose you.”

“You’ve given me so many memories, I'd hate it if you become one”

“I hope you heal from the things you dont wanna talk about”

“I was gonna marry her…”

“Because you always been my ticket home…”

“Have you ever gone stargazing?” “yeah, i’ve seen your eyes a few times.”

"Oh God- why are you half-naked?" "nothing you haven't seen before, love" "it's freezing, go put on a shirt-" "Nah, you can warm me up." 

“You never have to fear that you’re losing me.”

“Aw, you brought out the smile.” “Which smile?” “The one reserved for the people you love.” “How could you even tell?” “Because that’s how you smile at me.”

“No, you’re not allowed to smile at me like that.”

“This is not some predestined soulmate shit or fate or whatever. I love you all on my own. Because you’re awesome and because I want to.”

“You know, I prefer you naked, but that dress also looks breathtaking on you.”

“Believe in the me that believes in you”

“Work can wait. You need rest.”

“I got the recipe from your mom, i hope i did it justice.”

“I think i deserve a cuddle for letting you stick your icy little feet on me all night.”

“Ok…so, umm I made this playlist for our first month anniversary. I hope it’s not too bad!” “Omg, this is- I can’t believe it! I always wanted someone to make me a playlist!” 

“You already are a handful. Together, you guys are insufferable.”

“I’m right here.”

“Careful, or I will fall for you.” “You’ll be fine. I’ll buy you some knee pads.” “Knee pads but no helmet?” “If you’re falling for me, you’ve already taken a hit to the head.”

“Uh-oh.” “What’s wrong?” “That’s their ‘oh, you messed with the wrong bitch, bitch’ face.”

“You look like an idiot.” “You know, other people would say it’s nice to see me so happy. Or that I have a beautiful smile.”

“I’ve never seen you this happy before.”

“(Congrats.) You’re one of us now.”

“Please, never apologise for wanting to be loved.”

“Come on. I’ll show you how to dance”

"Are you still mad at me? I mean, it's okay if you are. I'm mad at myself, too."

"Put your head on my lap and sleep a little."

 “I don’t want to go to bed angry…can we please talk about this?” 

“Your cheeks are really soft.” “Stop squishing them!”

“You didn’t have to do anything…” “But i wanted to.”

[dr-spectre]

Ranting about the Splatoon Fandom Wiki....

I wanna quickly make fun of the Splatoon fandom wiki because like most fandom wikis, it's covered with ads unless you use an adblocker, is poorly formatted, poorly structured, has less info than Inkipedia, doesn't update frequently, has missing information, and genuinely is less "professional" than Inkipedia. It also just copies and pastes info from Inkipedia too so there's that as well... I'm not exactly sure how fandom wiki works and how the moderation works but it seems scattered and not good enough by any means.

Like Callie's page for example has this weird ass paragraph that says Callie was left unstable after Splatoon 2??? And it contains a lot of errors and a very weird subjective piece of text in what is supposed to be an objective as possible page, cause you know, ITS A WIKI!!!

She wants to splat shielded Octarians over and over again because that's just in line with her character, she's energetic and silly, she doesn't give a fuck that you need to go behind them to attack them better, she's just gonna splat them up front with her roller, that's just who she is, she represented team Show No Mercy in Splatoon 1 for a reason. Also that dialogue is cut off from what she actually says to further paint this idea that Callie is some broken unstable girl who was a victim of kidnapping and forced brainwashing, for some fucking reason i don't know. I can't even seem to find the original dialogue they stated because THEY DON'T LINK SOURCES!!! HOW DOES A WIKI NOT PROVIDE SOURCES TO THEIR QUOTES!?!?? WHAT!?? I tried checking Inkipedia and even they don't have this dialogue from Callie, so idfk man. All I know is that the dialogue was cut off. Ugh...

From my memory i don't even recall Callie having a new facial animation where her pupils shrink, or it's just so incredibly minor that it's not worth bringing up at all. She also wasn't smiling to hide her panic when her grandfather was kidnapped and insulting Mr. Grizz what the fuck? She was frowning when Cuttlefish dried up and died for a moment!! She was UPSET! and didn't hide it at all! What the hell?! Also facial animations in Splatoon work by the characters swapping between different mouth presets in quick succession, you can see it for yourself when you watch the Idols perform and sing, their mouths don't move smoothly and it makes sense because their language is just gibberish and clipped together audio clips. You can't animate that smoothly unless you spent an INSANE amount of time to animate their mouths incredibly smoothly to match the intentional gibberish and messy vocals. And you gotta do that for EVERY. CUTSCENE. IN. THE. STORY. MODE. That's why the developers just do the cheaper and simpler option to save on time, money and labour.

The "Plenty!" line in response to Shiver's "what is wrong with you?" Is most likely a reference to her quote on quote "airheaded" personality and a subtle nod at her putting the shades back on again and again.

Callie does seem to have mental health issues but it wasn't caused by some "brain warping evil shades oooo", it was due to various things prior to that. Waking up very early in the morning every single day and working non stop, getting harassed by paparazzi, being incredibly lonely and having a strained relationship with someone you used to care about would fuck up anyone's mental health and cause you to overthink and make bad decisions, like join the Octarians and end up wanting to adopt their ideals due to not wanting to go back to your old life and having to deal a fractured relationship with a family member that you think insulted you multiple times on live television, and those feelings and that darkness inside your heart get further amplified by hypnotic shades that cause the restraints in your head to finally break through. But i digress....

Another BIG issue with the fandom wiki is that it's not updated at all, it's extremely outdated, you can check for yourself, find your favorite Idol or character and see if they have the latest info on them, chances are, they don't.

Marina's page is missing Side Order information and new songs.

Shiver's is missing a LOT of gallery and Splatfest information. (No info on Suffer No Fools and "What would you do at world's end?" Splatfest)

Same with Frye. (Frye has the most up to date info on her Splatfest wins and loses yet Shiver doesn't? Huh?)

DJ Octavio's page spreads the incorrect narrative that he uses music to directly control Octarians which has been proven false.

Inkipedia gets it right by saying it's more like propaganda and military marches.

(Although i have my own personal issues with how sometimes Inkpedia talks about Hypno Callie but at least they bothered to include the god damn relationship chart in her page.)

Yeah the Splatoon fandom wiki is just.... bad man. it's awful. It's dogshit. Sometimes i see it as the top result when i search for characters and other Splatoon related content, i don't want casual fans and newcomers to go on that website which has false and outdated information. Please give all the support you can to Inkipedia. It's incredibly rich in information and updates fairly quickly. As a game wiki it's insanely well put together and one of the best wikis out there. It's amazing. If you want to do a wiki scroll and you're mildly interested in Splatoon then it's a great place to get lost for a while and spend some time in.

I just wanted to do a little ranting is all right now. I know that a large majority of people in the community don't like the fandom wiki and Inkipedia is superior by 10000000x but. I just wanted to rant a little. Get my thoughts out there. I'm too attached to a certain cephalopod woman to let poor information about her slide under the radar.

[rajaions]

Was Ashnard an illegitimate son of the king?

(This post contain spoilers for FE9/10)

Ashnard; the "only" surviving member of Daein's royal family, as we progress through the game's story, we come to find out how his family was wiped out (almost) entirely, his involvement in this tragedy and his reasons for having committed such acts.

There are some informations scattered across both games regarding Ashnard's position in the royal court prior to the downfall of his family that I feel are of importance understand his character better.

Our main sources of information will be the following:

- The base conversation with Tanith in chapter 18 (PoR)

- Ashnard and Bryce's conversation in the final chapter of PoR

-The final chapter of part 3 (RD)

The base conversation with Tanith explains what happened to the royal family 18 years prior to the mad king's war:

Ike: "Nobles, you say? So the royal family fell victim to this plague as well?"

Tanith: "Yes. The reigning king and queen and some twenty or so princes and princesses fell ill. And everyone who fell ill perished."

Here, we learn that the king, his queen and ~20 princes and princesses died because of a "plague" (which was actually the curse of a blood pact)

There's other important information in the base conversation with Tanith, but I feel like it's important to mention that the way this information was treated in English localization and original Japanese script differs slightly.

English localization:

Tanith: "You see, his name was never mentioned in any talk of succession before that time. He was of such a distant bloodline that he was unlikely to be king."

Japanese script:

タニス: "そうだ。 だがそれまでは…

王位継承には名の挙がることがなかったほど、

王位には遠い存在だったようだ。"

tl: Tanith: "Indeed. But until then...his name had not ever come up in talk of succession; that was how far he was from the throne, it seems."

(Link to the fan translation can be found here, I recommend reading it to understand my post better)

"Of such a distant bloodline" VS "that was how far he was from the throne"

Ashnard is consistently referred as the king's son across both games, which means that he can not be of "a distant bloodline". (probably an error on the translators part)

In the final chapter of PoR, when Ashnard reveals the truth behind the downfall his family, he admits to killing his father, brothers and his stepmother.

Ashnard: "The thing that killed my father was not plague, nor was it another illness.  It was me.

Ashnard: "Oh, but it doesn't end there. There was my stepmother, too. And every brother who stood to be a legitimate heir...All of them died by my hand."

Before I get to my point, let me list what do we know for facts:

- Ashnard is the king's son

- The queen of Daein died because of the blood pact (and thus, was killed by Ashnard)

- Ashnard killed his stepmother

- He killed around 20 princes and princesses (Note: the title of prince/princess is not exclusive to the king's children; it can also be used for his siblings/grandchildren)

- He killed "every brother who stood to be a legitimate heir"

- His name never came up in talks of succession

So, how does the king's son can end up so low in the succession line?

While not explicitly stated, it seems pretty obvious (to me) that the queen and Ashnard's stepmother are one and the same.

If Ashnard was born from an extramarital affair, it would explain why he was never seen as a potential heir to the throne, the queen's children and potential grandchildren would be prioritized over him.

And with over 20 princes and princesses in the family, it's not far-fetched to imagine that some of them were born out of wedlock.

With all of that in mind, let's take a look at these quotes:

Almedha: "Ashnard, he… always worried about the future of a world without equals. He was born an outstanding man, wise beyond his age, yet could never become king."

Ashnard: "I question the way in which our society is designed. No matter what strength a person has, it is the station he is born into that controls his destiny. And you cannot control where you will be born. Do you believe that a person of low birth should simply endure the curse of his station?"

We can grasp why he became so enamored with the idea that "the strong should possess everything", because as an illegitimate son of the king, his chances of becoming king through legitimate/nonviolent means were probably close to zero. Physical strength was his only way obtain some sort of legitimacy. (for example, his name was well known in the army prior to his ascension to the throne)

TL;DR Although his father is indeed the king of Daein, many elements imply that Ashnard's mother is not the queen, making him an illegitimate son of the king.

[uh-mxtx]

Modern MDZS au where WWX gets in a debate with college professor LQR about LGBTQA+ stuff, probably bc WWX is “corrupting” LWJ with the gay agenda. And stealing all of LWJ’s turtlenecks, for some odd reason! The boy clearly can’t take care of his own clothes, they’re all tattered and his hair is a birds nest.

Anyways, LWR is going on about how the homos are lecherous filth that have fallen to temptation or smth while covering up their transgressions by naming themselves odd things. Really, LQR asks, “what even is a pan-sexual?” (Or some other such thing that shows he doesn’t actually know anything anout being queer)

“Oh, you don’t know?” WWX asks, eyes wide and innocent and CLEARLY up to Some Shit. “Professor Lan, Professor Lan, Professor ‘show your sources do your research’ LAN. Do you not know what we’re debating about?”

LQR huffs and starts saying something about family values and continuing on bloodlines, but WWX is grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

“Professor, have you ever actually researched this? Or are you just wasting my time?” (An actual LQR quote from earlier in the semester)

LQR puffs up, and he’s all “of course I haven’t-“

“Well then, Sir,” WWX interrupts, manic joy written all over his expression, “may I just say that you have the audacity of a white man insisting that Mandarin is just a type of orange.”

The bell rings before LQR can get a word in, and WWX grabs his bag and books it to the door.

“I’ll send you some reading, Professor Lan! Let’s do this again when you know what you’re talking about!”

And with that he’s gone.

Now, WWX is only a little bit of a hypocrite, bc he definitely thought he was straight and only just managed his Revelation of “oh heck Lan Zhan is so pretty he turned me gay?” *research montage bc he actually has resources (and NHS definitely helped.) “Oh maybe girls are just pretty and I’m demisexual.”

However, the fact that he only JUST did this, means his ADHD self still has all the tabs open. And, like, he did say he’d send stuff, and this is Lan Zhan’s uncle. So, he compiles a helpful list of sites and articles, includes a link to a place where you can ask questions to the Queer Council, and sends it off.

LQR is initially going to ignore it, but then his scholar brain gets the better of him. WWX had made a point, he was woefully unprepared, and so with the intention of finding points to throw in that little brat’s face, he braces himself for horrible outlandish untraditional family-breaking nastiness, plus whatever else WWX might have put in there (ancestors if that horrid boy sent him PORN he’ll have him expelled) and opens the links.

He finds a bunch of actual helpful websites.

Definitions for all the names, labels, flags. Helpful tips for understanding yourself. Pictures of couples holding hands, smiling happily.

“Love isn’t just for procreation.”

Resources for kids who’s parents kicked them out. Survival tips. Unsafe areas.

And, because I’m personally a big fan of Demisexual WWX, a whole bunch of websites on the Asexual spectrum. You know, where people say, “oh yeah, apparently other people actually DO feel that urge to have sex with people. The songs aren’t making stuff up y’all. We’re just built different.”

LQR: nani tf?

Thus begins a confused deep dive into asexuality, what it means, allosexuals and all that jazz. LQR actually does end up asking a question on one of the sites, something like:

“I always believed that people who allowed themselves to be lustful and fall into bed with others were simply unrestrained. Is it true that some people feel an actual need for this? I have felt attraction for a woman before, but I never felt the need that some popular media attests to.”

There’s a bunch of replies, but one sticks out to LQR:

“Gonna be crude for a sec, excuse me- did you actually want to bang her? Or were you friends and heteronormative society insisted that boys and girls gotta want to fuck?”

LQR, who as a young man looked at CSSR and thought “If I have to marry, I wouldn’t mind her”: 🤯🤯🤯

Oh no.

He has to face that smirking little brat WWX.

[felassan]

I was sent a link to an 'interview with Mark Darrah about BioWare' video that I hadn't seen before. it's called "Mark Darrah on BioWare, Dragon Age 4, & EA's Impact" and [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when watching, but it still has interesting insights and things in there. Mark had been invited on to chat after his BioWare Magic video. the video description reads as follows:

“Mark Darrah spent over 20 years with BioWare and has overseen its many incredible RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Knights Of The Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and most notably on his portfolio, Dragon Age. He was also present during the pre-EA era and experienced much of the changes within the company after BioWare had been purchased by them in 2007. Today, he joins the show for a sobering conversation on the status of this once beloved gaming titan after speaking out in a recent YouTube video of his on "BioWare Magic" in which he holds the developer accountable for their bad processes. The conversation goes into deep waters no other outlet has reached yet, so we do hope you enjoy our biggest interview yet.” [source]

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some notes and transcribed quotes of interest from the video, in case that's of any use to anyone, for example for accessibility.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf / 'current or recent general BioWare'

Mark explained the ‘hockey stick’ analogy about game development that he has previously outlined in a video on his own channel. There is a tendency in game development, that is not unique to BioWare, to focus on “microscopic efficiency”, especially so in studios that have gotten bigger and bigger. This ends up building a backlog of content and things being built in isolation from each other, and devs working in isolation from one another. But at some point, a game has to come together for different reasons, like an upcoming demo is approaching or money is running out etc, and when that happens, this completion tends to build upon itself and it ends up happening rapidly. At BioWare, historically the idea of ‘don’t worry, it’ll all come together really fast at the end and it will be great [like magic]’ [I am paraphrasing there] was called “BioWare Magic”. This term is from the late 90s but it still has bubbled around within the studio in more recent times. Mark said, “I think it’s partially because of the way that the leadership works on projects at BioWare. There’s a leapfrogging that happens. So the team that led KOTOR ended up being the team that led ME1-3 and Anthem, but meanwhile, between those games, other games are being done with different leadership teams. So culture can have this weird sort’ve almost, like it takes two steps forwards and then one step back as a new leadership team kinda gets into the driver’s seat. Because basically, what ends up happening is that the team that is closest to ship, at least for the big games, tends to drive the studio to a large degree.” There are other leadership teams in the background at those times, but from a culture perspective they are largely in the background.

Sonic Chronicles had a team of just over 20 devs and Mark led this. The smaller team size meant they had more agility and more ability to control and understand what was going on in a way that doesn’t really exist on larger teams. “Something that BioWare has been struggling with is, BioWare has had big teams all along. In the Baldur’s Gate [era], it was teams of 100+ people at a time, at a time [in the industry generally] when teams elsewhere in the industry were tiny. So BioWare has processes that have been around for a long time that are actually pretty good at dealing with team sizes between, say, 100 and 200 people, but what’s been happening for a while is that those teams have started to get beyond 200.” “What has happened at a lot of other studios, they have processes that work at 60 but don’t work at 150. They’ve had to develop new processes to work at larger sizes. BioWare kind’ve got to skip that step, they didn’t do that, but now they’re having to do that, because now we’re beyond what their processes can handle.”

On what prompted Mark to make his ‘BioWare Magic’ video: “I don’t know, it was just kind’ve, it’d been chewing away at me and I know that James Stephanie Sterling, it’s one of their go-to things, when they’re talking about process, is to go ‘BioWare Maaagic’, when talking about BioWare specifically or just game development in general, because someone did say that, on Anthem, I don’t know who but I do have my suspicions. So I think maybe it was just eating at me for a while. I don’t think anything in particular triggered it.” “BioWare Magic kind’ve became a term that I recognized as something that was being used to kind of paper over things that weren’t great, processes that were problematic, on DAII. Part of the reason it was gnawing at me was I kind’ve felt like this was a term that we had left in the past. We talked this way in the early days of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and DA:O, but that we had learned our lessons – I think most people had, but I think there remained enough people in senior enough positions that hadn’t had the experience of shipping as many games, or had been in places where they hadn’t shipped for a long time, or had just kept this romantic view of ‘just keep going, just keep driving, it will all come together in the end.’”

“As to why the revamps of Anthem and stuff [got cancelled], I don’t know. EA has launched things that have fallen on their face, Battlefield 4, Battlefront 2, that then they’ve spent the time to fix, but in the case of BioWare, that hasn’t been the case. That’s not what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda. Maybe it’s partially because BioWare is doing multiple things at once. If you’re at Dice, and you want Battlefield 4, and it’s a problem, it’s like, well, ‘you better fix it because you got nothing else to do’. Whereas with BioWare, it’s like, ‘well, you could fix it, but don’t you want those resources on Dragon Age or Anthem or whatever’s coming next?’ So maybe it’s that. I don’t know, I’ve thought about this and I can’t.. It could also just be ‘too big to fail’. Battlefield was too big to fail. Anthem wasn’t. It disappointed but it wasn’t a franchise that needed to continue.” “[looter shooters] It’s a tough genre, there weren’t a lot of people who understood it from a dev perspective.”

On the EA “scapegoat” / blaming EA: “I think there is some truth [in it], I do think it’s an easy scapegoat and I think it’s very easy to say, ‘oh, Big Evil Corporation’, but you have to remember that, honestly, I mean BioWare would have probably shut down in 2007 or 2008 if we hadn’t been acquired by EA. The coffers were pretty empty before it got acquired by BG Holdings or Elevation Partners, the company that sold BioWare to EA. There was no money left. So they kept the company going, it’s hard to be too mad at them. I think that EA doesn’t understand what BioWare is. I think EA ultimately understands sports games, and shooters because you can kinda treat them a lot like a sports game and you get away with it, they’re quite competitive. But if you look at the franchises within EA that are not like sports games, The Sims, BioWare [franchises], they’ve struggled with that, they don’t understand and they’ve had a lot of trouble, and so when they look at BioWare, what they see, RPGs are expensive. So what they see is, thee are expensive, they don’t sell as well as Battlefield, what’s up with that? Has EA had negative effects on BioWare? Absolutely, but I don’t think necessarily in the way that people think. So, like, some of the stuff you’ve heard about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, it’s like, ‘it’s gonna be a live service extravaganza’, ‘it’s gonna be singleplayer’, like that bouncing back and forth, that’s mostly coming from EA, that’s the kind of stuff that you’re getting from EA. But in terms of second-to-second pressure around what the futures of the individual games are, it happens, but that’s usually just rogue executive, not actually EA saying ‘we need this to be more BIG HEAD TURTLE RACING’, that’s not really happening. Or if it’s happening, a decent Executive Producer can judo it out of existence. So I do think, yeah, I mean, was there pressure on DA:I and ME:A to be on Frostbite? Absolutely, like that was politically basically effectively mandated, so there’s been impacts, and honestly I think maybe, since I did the BioWare Magic video, I’ve been thinking about this. One thing that happened before EA was that BioWare games slipped more, like wayyy more, which was probably why the company was almost out of money. So games have slipped since EA, but other than SW:TOR, games have not slipped years, except because of massive externalities. So Dreadwolf has moved, but because of it basically being restarted, but other than those externalities, things haven’t really moved as much. And I think maybe the reason why BioWare Magic maybe worked in the past was because you pivoted eventually and then you just kept going until it was great. If your date can’t move as much, you’ve pivoted and then you run into the date [and crash], and you’re just, that’s what it is, and you’re done.”

On Frostbite and whether the ‘omg Frostbite Bad’ stuff from players is overblown: “Every time you change engines, there’s a consequence to that. I do think there’s a fetishization of engine use by fans, but also honestly by devs. I think there’s a ‘grass is always greener’ [thing going on/mentality]. My feeling is, the best engine to use is almost always the engine you just used. So if you just shipped a game on Frostbite, probably you should use Frostbite for the next one, because you’ve built things to ship that game, so you can build on top of it. There are extreme circumstances where that’s not going to go, Eclipse was long in the tooth and it didn’t look very good, and so it’s hard to imagine that you could continue going down that road and continue using Eclipse indefinitely. Bethesda has essentially done that with their engine and it shows, but it’s left them being incredibly successful. Honestly, the mistake that I think that was made at BioWare regarding Frostbite, it’s again this sort’ve, independence of leadership. DA:I was made using Frostbite and we went in learning the lessons that Mass Effect had learned on ME1 from Unreal, like respect what the engine is, build on top of what’s there, don’t try to force it to be something else. And a lot of stuff was built and then ME:A started in the middle of DA:I’s development and basically started over again from blank DA:I. And then that’s going on, and then Anthem starts, again before DA:I has shipped, and starts effectively AGAIN from a blank sheet. So for me, for BioWare the problem wasn’t Frostbite, the problem was never Frostbite, the problem was we went through the pain of adopting an engine three times when we should’ve done it once.” “I’m sure there was somebody there that wanted DA:I to be on Unreal, but I didn’t feel that from the team as a whole. What I would’ve wanted to see, in a world where resources were unbounded, would’ve been a fast follow of DA:I, something that came out in 18-24 months, built not just on Frostbite, but on the DA:I tech base. I think there was an opportunity there. You know, we’ve pitched all kinds of stuff inside of Frostbite for, in early Joplin, like making the tools available to the public, like modding and what happened with DA:O and NWN, where the tools were available for building modules and things like that. There was no appetite for that within EA at the time. Interestingly enough, right before I left [his EP job], there seemed like there was growing appetite, but now with the latest news on Battlefield, I’m actually wondering if they won’t ceremoniously take Frostbite out behind the shed and shoot it in the head. They’re definitely laying blame on Frostbite for, in the case of Battlefield, which I mean, of all the franchises where I feel that’s undeserved, that would be Battlefield.”

On leaving BioWare at that time a few years ago: “Casey and I did not coordinate our departures. Certainly I didn’t coordinate with Casey. Casey resigned a day after I did. It is possible that I triggered him to resign. I don’t believe that’s what happened. There was timing for other financial things that sort’ve lined up for both me and him that I suspect was probably the trigger for both of us, but we were not coordinated in this. It was frustrating, and was it getting more frustrating? I don’t know that it was, but for me at least, because we were getting to the period where Dragon Age was going to be in the primary driving position for BioWare - I don’t think that anything corporate changed in November, early December of 2020 that triggered me [to leave]. Casey would’ve been in conversations that I wasn’t in, so it’s possible that there was a trigger for him that I’m not aware of.”

Is the idea of ‘omggg classic BioWare’, the spirit of that era, overblown? “I don’t think so. I think that actually, the thing that makes a BioWare game special, for me at least, is the characters, the followers specifically. Obviously when you look at Anthem through that lens, you can kinda see a glaring problem. You have characters, but they’re not followers, not as present as they are in other games. But the funny thing is, we never said that out loud until, pretty much 2019, in the post-Anthem world, was when I think people started to really say out loud like, ‘you know, it’s about the characters, stupid!’ I think we’ve had conversations in the past where it’s like ‘BioWare tells its stories through characters’. There’s been the knowledge, but I don’t think that there’s been the acknowledgement of, say the thing that’s most important out loud and make sure that you’re respecting that. There was almost like, we were too confident in it and we’re like ‘we don’t need this because we can set it aside, we can have characters that are just in your base, we don’t need followers’. It took us saying it out loud to really acknowledge that. I think that that is still true, and I think there is still a pedigree at BioWare that can execute on excellent characters. The reality is, if you look at the story of, frankly, any BioWare game, they’re not amazing, what makes it amazing is you’re experiencing it through other characters, that elevates the story overall. Of course, that’s how it always has been and how it should be.”

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the then-recent reports on its rumored release time [remember this video is from 2022]: “I don’t know where the ‘it’s got 18 months left to go’ measurement is coming from, but timeline, that makes perfect sense to me. They would’ve needed to adapt, and even like when I was still there, we were probably headed towards, yeah, probably towards 2023 even then. So I think that it’s very plausible to me, and I think that if they’ve been able to increase their completion urgency and bring things to further phases earlier, they could be in really good shape. There was stuff getting there when I was still there a year ago, and if they were able to be stable enough to keep that stuff, then they probably have a really good foundation to build upon. And I would think that they probably were able to keep the things that were nearing completion when I left, so, I mean, they probably have, for 18 months out they probably have - so I’m trying to say this correctly. Not that they have more things that another BioWare game would’ve had 18 months out, because that’s actually the problem, tons of things. [but] they have more done 18 months out than any other BioWare title probably has ever had. So a tighter core, maybe not as much stuff yet, but a tighter core, but that will let them go faster when they’re going. Essentially, if they’ve taken the hockey stick, and they’ve pulled this part up, and I think they have, then I think it should put them in significantly better shape going forward.”

One of the podcast/media folks shared the following comment: “What I personally have been told, I never call it a report or a scoop or anything like that because it’s just a sentiment, but the sentiment that had been shared with me [about DA:D] is sort’ve like, ‘we need to nail this’, not like a desperation like ‘we’re done if we don’t’, but like, we want this high score, we want to remind people why they love BioWare games.” They then asked Mark about whether he views DA:D as a “do or die moment” and about what the vibe inside BioWare was around this. Mark: “Not in the early days [of DA:D’s development], as that’s pre-ME:A and pre-Anthem. But I think, in a post-Anthem world, I think ME:A was, could weather that, but ME:A and Anthem together, yeah, I think there is some truth to that. Now would EA shut down BioWare? I don’t know, as you say they’ve done it before [to other studios], also studios become effectively in-source houses for other studios. There are fates that are almost as bad as being shuttered. So is it actually do or die? Honestly, I think the reputation matters more, because if people give up on BioWare externally, why would EA keep them around? If everyone just decides that BioWare is a bunch of hacks doing garbage then why would EA bother? One of the things that has kept EA kind of interested in BioWare is, BioWare is kind of like the sub-arm of a movie studio that makes the Oscar Bait. So maybe that excuses it for some people, it’s like, well yeah, your games cost more and they sell less than the Battlefields, but Battlefield was never gonna win Game of the Year, even if they made a perfect Battlefield, it’s probably never going to win GOTY, it’s the nature of the disrespect certain genres get. Like how you can make a perfect Marvel movie but it’s never winning Best Picture. So I do think that if BioWare is making quality that is respected and making people excited, that gives it leeway within EA that another studio that’s making things that may sell better may not get. So I do think that this needs to be a good game, and I actually think EA knows that too, and I think EA recognizes that, you know, they deserve some of the blame for Anthem and some for ME:A, less, but some. So I think that when they look at that, when they look at Jedi Fallen Order, a game that honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense within EA, it exists in part because it kind of brought in a studio that made it. Like it’s not the kind of game that EA would typically greenlight. But when they see it and that it did well, they’re not stupid.”

How much corporate-speak is there in a ‘I’m leaving the studio’ announcement letter like Mark’s when he left his EP role at BioWare? “So most public things, if it’s on the website, it’s gone through somebody, like there’s legal, it’s gone through somebody to approve a message. One of my frustrations in EA is just how, I mean, I was effectively like second Community Manager for Anthem because they weren’t willing to tell me ‘no’, and so I was able to basically put out messages that wouldn’t have survived the process. But I mean, they didn’t pay me anything to say nice things, I didn’t get paid anything on my way out to be nice, so I do actually believe that the core of Dragon Age remains strong, that there are definitely people there that know how to make a great game, and there are people there that know what the IP is, and I think that they are well-positioned to do that.”

“In terms of what, like, something that made me say ‘no, that’s enough, it’s over’ [re: his time at BioWare], there’s good days and bad days. I don’t know that there was any particular project that made me say no, enough, I’m done. Anthem isn’t the high point of my career both as a leader and also in terms of the product that came out the other side, but I don’t feel like there was a moment of ‘no, we’re done.’”

Other BioWare things

To a degree, BioWare have been a victim of their past success and were just leaning on that, or the thought from upper management was doing so. “I think that’s also partially weirdly caused by the leadership teams being somewhat isolated. I was responsible for shipping DA2. That was a big wakeup call for me and leaders on that project. But other people didn’t experience that, they were on Mass Effect at the time and then they shipped ME3 and had a different blowback for different reasons, but not for the same kind of development reasons, so they learned different lessons than I learned. They learned a lesson about the endings, but not necessarily about the way games come together.”

On Anthem’s failure and the cancelled attempt overhaul Anthem Next: “I think there’s tons of blame to go around for Anthem, certainly part of it should fall on me. For a lot of Anthem’s development, the team, this was before I was on the project, the team was not really recognizing that it was a looter-shooter. So you have to remember that this was a game that started development before Destiny even came out. No one knew what Destiny was except that they were making it clear it wasn’t an MMO. I feel that one of the early mistakes that was made was that when Destiny came out, when Borderlands was out there, there was a reluctance to draw that connection and say ‘this is BioWare’s Destiny or BioWare’s Borderlands’, that gives that clarity and draws that connection. A lot of it just came together really late. The leadership team had lost its ability to make decisions, or had that ability taken away potentially, so there was just a lot of churning happening, and decisions being made and unmade, or being left unmade for a long period of time. But what that means is, when I came in, I’m great at making decisions, and in a vacuum, decisions got made, but what that effectively resulted in is I just took the stick and pushed it down. I’m used to working with a leadership team that pushes back and I think what happened is this leadership team was so desperate, so hungry for decisions to be made, that rather than pushing back on the stick that I’m pushing towards the ground, they’re actually pulling it towards the ground like ‘Yes, finally!!’ And instead of me aiming like this [motioning with his hands like a plane’s downward flight] and the resistance happening like this, I think what happened is this actually caused us to go way too fast [and crash land]. It’s hard for me to see a path where things are actually way better, because we knew a lot of things, we went into the Christmas break before it shipped having not done a complete balance pass through the loot structure, and we did it in this awful hotseat way with QA playing the game 24 hours a day over that break. So we knew that things were shakey, but the team was tired, and you know, EA wanted it in the fiscal year, and the problem is.. so I do see a path [in an alternate universe] where you get a better Anthem, but that path requires the game to basically enter Beta around the time when it launched, and then sit in Beta for six months, say, and then launch in August or whenever that would have been, but EA wasn’t that company then. I don’t know if it’s that company now [video is from 2022], but it certainly wasn’t that company then. It wasn’t prepared to put a game out into Beta for that long and spend the time. I think if we had just spent six more months on it without having gone into Beta, it would have been better, but it wouldn’t have been what it needed to be. It needed to get out into the world and get the pushback.”

“There was a lot of politics in Frostbite [as an engine choice]. It was Patrick Söderlund’s engine when he ran DICE, he was in a very senior position, he could push for it. I think EA still remembers forcing render-ware down everyones’ throat and that blowing up in their face. So I think they’re reluctant to mandate it simply to save a few bucks. At the time, when DA:I, I can’t remember if it was me or Aaryn Flynn, at the time I would’ve described, Unreal was like a NASCAR car. A good fast car, you can go in a race. At the time I would’ve described Frostbite as a Formula One car. Way faster but way harder to drive, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, in a NASCAR you can probably not kill yourself. In an F1 car, I think you’re gonna plough that thing into a brick wall in 3 seconds and you’ll die. And that’s what you’ve seen happen with Frostbite in that sort’ve time period, back in the 2012 - 2015 time frame. Teams that approached the engine with respect did well, teams that didn’t ploughed their car into a brick wall. But I don’t know that that analogy still holds, I don’t think Frostbite is still the graphically-superior engine to Unreal anymore. Back then it made sense to use Frostbite, we could get a better-looking game using Frostbite than using Unreal. I question if that is still the case.”

“In its very core EA is a publicly-traded company. I haven’t worked in a senior level at other publicly-traded companies, but it is very visible. It is difficult to move a game between fiscal quarters. It’s virtually impossible to move a game between fiscal years, because of just like, that is the way the company, I’m not gonna say it’s run by its CFO, but sometimes it feels like it’s run by its CFO.”

DA:I was a victim of the moment in time it was made in, when open-world games were like taking over the universe. “It’s bigger than it needs to be by somewhere between 20-50%.

The team made DA2 in very difficult circumstances and were very aligned the whole way through.

The perception of a game in its first week after launch can make or break a game forever. This put a cloud over DA2. “Though it’s become the BioWare game that’s most fashionable to love, second after ME:A. DA2 was flawed because of the pace at which it was made. ME:A was flawed because things like bugs and things that should’ve been caught escaped. ME:A is a better game now than it was at launch [patches].” “DA2 has sort’ve recovered from the initial kneejerk reaction it received. ME:A has actually repaired itself into a better game.”

“I don’t think there was a reason that ME:A was excluded from the remaster [MELE]. I mean, the easy answer would be, it’s on Frostbite, the others are on Unreal, so to include it means just from a logistics perspective, it’s just a lot of extra work. I mean honestly, it still looks fine, so it’s not in as desperate of a need of a remaster either, it’s not on last generation.”

On the difference in design philosophy between DA:O and DA2 and why it happened: “It’s mostly marketability. The marketing for DA2 was supposed to be ‘tree houses and frat houses’. It was like, we’re gonna make sure that the game is appealing to the people that love DA:O as the tree house, but we’re also gonna make this thing that’s AWESOME and EXPLODING. The problem is, what happened in practice is that the marketing kinda forgot the tree house completely and didn’t market to them at all, and leapt into the frat house marketing and only made this sorta thing of ‘bruuuh! Bro! You can totally bro, bro!’ It’s essentially a victim of confirmation bias. The marketing said, this isn’t DA:O, this is a heavy metal guitar riff of a game, and then when you played it and it’s more action-y, you just went yep, it’s exactly what I was worried it was going to be, and you basically discounted it. There’s a love-hate relationship with even the term ‘RPG’. I think we’ve grown past this as an industry but also BioWare has as well. I think, ‘RPG’ is seen as inaccessible, that only a very small amount of people are willing to play, so there’s been an attempt to say like, you know, this is the kind of game that anyone could enjoy, to try to reach a branch out to other people. Accessibility does matter because RPGs are expensive, so you want to make something that can appeal to as broad of a group as possible, or alternatively, you need to decide that you’re making a game for a smaller group of people and scope and budget accordingly. The other universe path for DA:O would’ve been to stay in the vein of, effectively, turn-based or pause-n-play, tactical RPGs, and accept that the game sells 4 - 7million copies, 7 on the very upper end, and budget accordingly. So that’s where EA has an influence. If there are two options, EA are definitely gonna say you wanna go for 10 million. And honestly, one of the things that I think that has hurt Dragon Age has been, it’s never been allowed to just be what it is, it’s always been, much more than Mass Effect, it’s been subject to, ‘but could you be more, could be more accessible, could you be bigger?’ Even though DA:I is the best-selling BioWare game of all time, and before that I’m pretty sure it was DA:O. I think because Mass Effect has a cultural impact because of N7 that Dragon Age simply doesn’t have. ME has genius branding.”

[source and full watch link]

[theomnicode]

How I write metas? A meta about metas

If this deconstruction post is going to be useful for any aspiring meta writer on this OPM fandom that I currently follow, then be my guest. :D

Warning: Semi-long post.

Step 1: Inspiration

Nope, really can't get into my head all the time to write stuff as much as I would love to but when I do, it's because I get a good inspiration from something. It does not really matter at this point if it's short or long, just the subject matters. Then if I get inspired, I will usually stew on that idea for a while and think about the points in the manga that fit.

Unfortunately inspiration does not strike all the time so there's always that. I'm going with the route that "you can't force inspiration to come to you, you want the inspiration to become you" or something like that. Take that with grain of salt, I just made it up on the spot.

Step 2: Practice

I've personally been writing fanfics since I was...a teen I believe and meta is just a subsection of writing school essays, except it's actually fun. So writing something has been quite a lot of work put behind it, but nobody says one cannot start from scratch today and the meta doesn't need to be immediately impressive, we're just writing it for fun yanno? For other fandom peeps who maybe wanna hear our thoughts. Just gotta start from somewhere yanno? My earlier metas are prolly a fair bit different than my current metas.

Like they say, practice makes perfect.

Step 3: The creative process

Ok so to the nitty gritty of the meta making... PLOT NO JUTSU!

I oftentimes either discuss the meta on discord channels with likeminded peeps and then start gathering some images from the manga to use as my images to enhance my point and make my texts also visually interesting to look at and make some clarifying points. I tend to find some good relative image to use as my first image because it'll show up in archive search like so:

It'll be easier to search for my metas even without searching for my tags from my archives if they look similar.

Next, I keep a folder for all my meta images in a neat pile and I use paint ms to cut me nice images to post into my meta and I also have cubari , the one site which hosts all the chapters so far, open where I can just grab images whenever. Basically any kind of image tool you got from paint to gimp to photoshop can help you crop images you want to use if you want to use images in your meta.

My brain can sometimes be pretty hard to follow apparently, so I do try to parse a lot when I write my texts and keep it somewhat coherent. Parsing information via the canon timeline can help form a coherent timeline to follow in a meta.

In general, you want your writing progress to be seamless and disturbance free creative process, not unlike drawing. Sometimes ambient music on the background can help focus on the actual meta writing process (currently listening to Ardenweald from WoW), which can take me from 1 hour to all the way to 5 hours in a single sitting, which is quite long but remember, tumblr drafts saves your progress even if you save it nowhere else and it's entirely possible to finish the thinking process another day when you have more time.

Sometimes I include links to either my own metas or some outside source, which I then briefly quote on my text, like in the Saitama mental health meta where I citate depression effects on memory recollection. The quote sources can also be stated at the very end like in a real essay, but to me personally I'm fine without the citations at the end, long as I state my sources and then put quotes into indented text.

Step 4: The writing itself

Paraphrasing helps make your text look coherent and easier to read to just about anybody, so avoid pure walls of texts. I usually write longer texts, but that is up to the writer to decide how short, long or how abridged they can/wanna make their work, which frankly is not one of my best skillsets lmao. Just gotta make sure to put that warning in the front if it's long post.

Nowdays, I also include chapter names and numbers about the relevant information I'm writing meta about in between () marks and itallics to further separate it from plain text, which might be helpful to people if they search for that specific plot point from the manga itself. Then if it's a particularly long meta, a tl;dr at the bottom if I can form a proper tldr.

Sometimes I also get struck by random thought and I just have to write it out haha. Sometimes I ask for aid and opinions on discord channels.

Any long metas should definitely have that "readmore" cutoff in the beginning, else entirety of tumblr or wherever you'll post the meta will hate you.

Step 5: Revision & Tagging

You can hold on from posting the meta the very same day and just keep it revised for a bit longer if you want to correct spelling mistakes or if you think you can maybe adds some more to it. Revision is just as important in writing meta as in writing something like fanfiction and I personally do a fair bit of both.

When tagging, I just use "opm meta" for all my opm related metas and then tag in fandom and characters that apply to the current meta and then some other related subjects like "mental health, character study" etc. I prolly haven't tagged my earlier metas that properly but eh... if you write on another platform and then copypaste it to tumblr, make sure that the plain text shows properly and doesn't create any weirdness.

Closing thoughts...that's about it folks, that's how I write meta and how I wrote this piece as well. Which took me roughtly 1hr 45mins to write down at my current writing speed but I've been thinking about this since yesterday haha.

Tl;dr: Inspiration, practice, creative process by saving images and thoughts as they go, writing and paraphrasing, revision and tagging properly.

[catras-breakup-song]

Hi.

I won't reply to you anonymously because I'm not scared/ashamed to debate openly, but first I wanted to ask: What do you mean Shadow Weaver would be raised by "mom" and Adora would be raised by "dad?" Hordak and SW literally had no romantic feelings for each other, they never dated, they were never married/divorced.

Adora and Catra would both have been raised by a single mother/father and them being childhood friends would have made sense since they wouldn't share an adoptive parent like they do in canon.

And even if the sources I mentioned about C//A being sisters aren't canon or what the show was going for, they kinda uh... Still put that dynamic IN the show? And since it's there, it's not illogical that some people are turned off by the ship. This person explained it perfectly: https://www.tumblr.com/anti-catradora-receipts/631728237468401664/the-fact-that-apparently-these-2-started-out-as?source=share

Not to mention that it basically resembles ANOTHER sibling relationship in fiction, which the same person talked about: https://www.tumblr.com/anti-catradora-receipts/637045171905789952/i-have-only-seen-clips-of-the-show-on-youtube-and?source=share

If C//A brings you happiness though, continue enjoying the ship and don't mind me. Also, if you wanna publish my reply to the public, go on.

with respect (which i genuinely appreciate you giving first), i think you may be confused, because i wasn't actually proposing a romantic dynamic between hordak and shadow weaver or them working together as parents; the context was that the person i was reblogging from had seen someone make a claim that what should have happened in canon was catra & adora were raised separately, and i challenged that logic, hence why i put those phrases in quotes when i compared it to a hypothetical realistic situation.

as far as the rest of your message goes, i think we just see shadow weaver differently and to me that's okay. i read through the first* post you linked (embedding it to make it more conveniently accessible), and i can see where they're coming from about her gestures towards the girls being maternal in an objective sense, but personally as i stated in one of my original post's points (which you may want to read through again if you haven't already), i think they both end up rejecting her as having ever truly been a mother as opposed to an assigned guardian. what i mean by this is, i suppose, how people say the title of mother should be earned, or else they may just be called an "egg donor" since that relationship was disowned by the child but doesn't take away from the fact that they gave birth (and a similar equivalent along those lines for adoptive ones, like SW).

*i briefly glanced through the other one, but i'm not sure i would understand since i've never known of that media.

considering everything she did was so manipulative, including body language, i just have a hard time accepting that her intentions were ever motherly (whether her actions actually were or not are up for debate & interpretation, in my opinion). the girls obviously wouldn't have understood this while they were kids, but once they grow older and the events of the story kick off, it seems to me like they deny having a mother in the past at all as they start learning to heal, because ideally having been orphans would be a less disturbing implication to them than what they got to experience instead.

that being said, i can't ignore the very last part of that receipt blog's post of the confession about the little girl. however, i think it goes far beyond just the discourse about them being sisters or lovers, considering some of the show's greater themes revolve around mature topics such as war & abuse. the writers have to be very careful about all the messages they're sending to a Y7-rated audience, such as "how far can someone go before crossing the line?" and "can certain people even be redeemed?" and "does not being a perfect victim by perpetuating the cycle of abuse mean you don't deserve to heal and be loved?" ─ i think these two analysis videos by "the sin squad" on youtube, that came out both before and after season five released respectively, cover this very valid concern pretty well, and they're worth a watch if you're still interested!

i hope this makes sense and what i'm trying to convey here comes across as i want it to. if not though, you're free to ask more questions and i'll do my best to communicate! i'd be happy to talk more since you're coming to me in good faith and don't shut out what i have to say. have a nice timezone, wherever you are! 𖹭

by the way, these banners are not here for you specifically, i just don't want nasty antis to come in and start arguing with me where they weren't invited, since they take a lot of mental effort to deal with. you are not one of them, in case that's not obvious! and thank you for clarifying that i can post this publicly or else i wouldn't be sure.

[demento01]

Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID- game, updates, crack, translations + Treasure Disc + OST new download links and torrents 2023

I had to spend a couple of hours going through old posts on web archive and finding a ton of dead torrents to find this so here you go.

Quick Index of what I include here:

Lamento's install DVD ISO.

Update 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, and 2.00 (this last one only in my own uploaded links, dont use with english translation!).

NoDVD crack.

Serial number.

Link to the complete fan translation which also includes an installation guide and a walkthrough.

The fandisc "Lamento Treasure Disc".

Fan translation for the Treasure Disc.

OST: The World Devoid of Emotion and Prelude

Full game (DVD iso, 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03 updates, NoDVD crack and serial), you'll have to install and update yourself:

(found here) serial is on the .txt file

English fan translation (also includes a guide on how to install the game and patch and has a walkthrough etc.)

(OP asks people to not post direct download links nor the game with the fan translation pre-applied and instead link to their post so I did that, but if the link ever dies and the OP doesn't revive it just comment or PM me and I'll edit this post)

My own uploads:

Torrent:

.torrent

hash: 59F204197FBDCB998828D3B25DB253FFD7FA5B1F

made by me and kept online 24/7.

This includes game iso, all updates (including the 2.00 one but only install 1.03 if you're gonna use the English translation) the serial and the NoDVD crack. I also included the "Treasure Disc" fandisc and a fan translation (source) and the OST and Prelude discs in FLAC format

Google Drive:

(password for updates and crack: "lamento" without the quotes. compressed with a password to avoid Drive flagging them as malware and restricting public access)

(also uploaded by me, has the exact same stuff as the torrent but different folder structure)

Game already installed, updated to 1.03 and cracked + translated treasure disc:

(saves you from having to install it yourself, all you'd need to do is paste the english fan translation files, couldn't do it myself because the people who made the translation don't want anyone to distribute the game with the translation pre-applied, also btw for update 1.03 you need to use the patch that doesn't say win10 at the end from the fan translation, I also included the treasure chest fandisc with the translation pre-applied in a separate folder)

If you have any issues check the aarifantasy fan translation post I linked in the fan translation section, they explain everything perfectly on there. Remember you need to set your system locale to japanese for both the game and the fandisc to work! If any of my links or torrents ever die just comment or PM me and I'll get them back up. Please share, you're free to mirror any of my own links anywhere but please don't modify or skip anything!

Also, remember to support the devs of the game! You can buy many of Nitro+CHiRAL titles in English officially through JAST. They don't have this one yet so that's why I'm sharing it here.